Edward J. Dennehy, Deputy Chief (Ret.) FDNY

In 2003 Chief Dennehy retired after having served 39 years with the FDNY. He had been a Chief Officer for 18 of those 39 years. His last assignment was as a Deputy Chief in Manhattan’s 3rd Division where he had worked for 7 years. The 3rd Division covers the area from 34 St. to 125 St. and from the Hudson River to the East River. Located within the division are numerous high rise office and residential buildings, hotels, theatres, places of worship, in addition to the commercial and land mark buildings that New York City is known for throughout the world.

During the years he was there, he operated at fires and emergencies in Grand Central Terminal, Cathedral of St. John the Devine, and Haz Mat incidents involving suspected Anthrax, asbestos, Carbon Monoxide poisoning, etc.

In addition to his firefighting duties, he was the Fire Prevention Coordinator for the division. These duties involved supervision of fire companies, recognition of serious building hazards or violations of law, and the necessary actions to remedy the situations.

Ed was responsible for seeing that buildings with unique designs or hazardous conditions were entered in to the FDNY computer program (CIDS) that alerted firefighters to these conditions whenever they responded to that particular building.

Ed was an instructor for 8 years at the Chief Officers Command Course and has written articles on firefighting tactics for the department’s magazine WNYF.

Since his retirement, he has prepared promotional exams for fire departments in the Metropolitan area, was a speaker at the High Rise Counter Terrorism Preparedness Conference in NYC and an instructor for Command School Inc.

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