New York City’s fire commissioner said Friday that he will retire next month after more than seven years in the job and a career that spanned more than five decades and included stints in every rank in the department.
Daniel Nigro led the nation’s largest municipal fire department through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and recently oversaw its response to the city’s deadliest fire in three decades.
With the FDNY’s ranks decimated by the deaths of 343 firefighters and fire officials in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Nigro received a battlefield promotion to chief of department. He led rescue and recovery operations at ground zero and helped the department rebuild. Nigro, one of the few holdovers from former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, will leave Feb. 16.