After the Shift Ended Over dinner, Fred Scheffold, chief of
the 12th Battalion in Harlem, liked to laugh about fighting
fires. Like the time he fell off a fire escape or the time
he rescued the skinny man and left the fat one for his
partner. "He never told us the bad stuff," said Kim
Scheffold, a daughter. "He loved going into fires and
rescuing people and he loved his men." At home in Piermont,
in Rockland County, Chief Scheffold skied, golfed, ran
marathons and read everything. He also sculpted logs with a
chainsaw, painted furniture in crazy- quilt colors and
taught his three daughters to reach high and not give up.
His shift had just ended when the station alarm rang Tuesday
morning but he jumped into the truck with the others. At 1
World Trade Center, he pushed through crowds to the
staircase, intending to climb to the top. The building
rumbled. "Doesn't sound good," he said to a friend. But he
kept on pushing forward.
