FDNY commemorates 20th anniversary of Black Sunday with remembrance ceremony

January 23, 2025

The FDNY honored the memory of fallen members with a mass and ceremony Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, marking the 20th anniversary of "Black Sunday," one of the deadliest days in FDNY history.

Four members were killed on the same day in 2005 at two separate fires in the Bronx and in Brooklyn. Three other members suffered life-threatening injuries.

On Jan. 23, 2005, six firefighters were forced to jump from a fourth-floor window after they were trapped by fire in an illegally converted apartment in the Bronx. Lieutenant Curtis Meyran, of Battalion 26, and Lieutenant John Bellew, of Ladder Company 27, died from their injuries. Lieutenant Joseph DiBernardo, of Rescue 3, succumbed to his injuries Nov. 22, 2011. Firefighters Jeff Cool, Eugene Stolowski and Brendan Cawley sustained life-threatening injuries.

That same day in Brooklyn, Firefighter Richard T. Sclafani, of Ladder Company 103, died while fighting a 2-alarm fire in East New York. Sclafani was a 10-year veteran of the Department.

Black Sunday was the deadliest day in Department's history since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

"Black Sunday was a day that will forever be ingrained in the heart of the FDNY. When there are days like that-when the losses are so crippling-when the day has the power to define so much, there is a choice to be made: How do we get through this?" FDNY Commissioner Robert S. Tucker said. "I look to all of you, gathered here 20 years later, and I know we do that by staying together like we are today. We do that by keeping their memories alive."

The annual mass and remembrance drew hundreds of active and retired FDNY members, as well as families and friends.