The devastated widow of a firefighter who died on New York City’s notorious “Black Sunday” — exactly 20 years ago Thursday — said she’s still struck by sudden tearful waves of grief when she least expects it.
Jeanette Meyran — whose husband Lt. Curtis Meyran was one of three firefighters killed in two blazes on Jan. 23, 1995 — fought back tears at an FDNY ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the catastrophe.
“It’s hard to be here,” she said of the Bronx firehouse where the event was held.
“The smell, the atmosphere, I kept looking for him, like where is he?” she said of her late husband. “It’s tough.”
Though the heartbreaking loss was decades ago, it still feels raw, she told The Post.
“For no reason you get all welled up. Going to the store or something — food shopping, buying the things he used to like [and thinking], ‘Oh I don’t have to buy that any more,” she said.
Three FDNY heroes died in two fires on that fateful day, one at an apartment building in The Bronx that left four others seriously injured, and the other at a Brooklyn home.
Two of the Bravest — Meyran, 46, and Lt. John Bellew, 37 — jumped to their death from a fourth floor apartment window to avoid burning alive shortly after 8:30 a.m. in Morris Heights.
Five hours later, firefighter Richard Sclafani, 37, was battling a blaze at a house in East New York when he got trapped in a basement and died of smoke inhalation and third-degree burns.
The double-catastrophe — which soon came to be known as “Black Sunday” — marked the first time since 1918 there had been firefighter fatalities at different locations in New York City on the same day.
On Thursday, Jeanette said watching her three adult children cope with the death of their dad over the years was “devastating.”
“How they cried for him, how they missed him. My daughter goes to me, ‘Mommy, who’s going to walk me down the aisle?’ It’s really painful.”
Her son Dennis Meyran, 36, of Wantagh, has since been inspired by his heroic dad to join the FDNY himself, he told The Post at his graduation in December.
“My son, my son. I’m very proud of him. I’m scared for him though because of what happened,” Jeanette said. “I say, ‘When the bells go off in the firehouse, stay there, don’t go out.’”
At the FDNY ceremony, hundreds of firefighters and their families said a prayer to honor the Bravest who died on Black Sunday at the Ladder 27 firehouse in the Bronx as bagpipers played an emotional melody.
Dennis Meyran, who has since been stationed at Engine 331 in Queens, celebrated the memory of his late father.
“I just feel so proud that his legacy lives on through me,” he said. “I got placed at a great house. I love the guys, they’re all looking out for me.
“I just want to fill my dad’s shoes,” he said.
“It’s tough, it’s a tough thing you know, it’s a big loss,” he said of his father’s death. “But I’m happy that he lives on.”
Firefighter Brendan Cawley, who was at the Bronx blaze 20 years ago, said he hasn’t forgotten the brave co-workers who lost their lives.
“We’re going to remember the members we lost that day and follow their lead. We can’t match their sacrifice, but we can try to just keep them in our hearts,” Cawley said.
While fighting the flames, Meyran and Bellew gave up their hose to smoke-eaters on the floor below at the illegally converted apartment complex on East 178th Street near Anthony Avenue.
Lt. Joseph DiBernardo — one of six firefighters who also leaped from the window — died of injuries linked to the fire nearly seven years later. Others were critically injured from the fall.
In 2005, Jeanette told The Post her husband wasn’t even supposed to be working on the Sunday he died.
“He lived for everybody else. He didn’t have a selfish bone in his body . . . He loved his children, he loved his job. He did what he was made to do,” she said at the time.
Meyran was a devoted 15-year FDNY veteran and father of three, who gave up a contracting business to become a firefighter.
Before his death, he had been honored twice for bravery, including for the rescue of two girls from a burning basement in Brooklyn.
Bellew was known as an athletic father of four children who worked on Wall Street before joining the FDNY ten years before his death.
Sclafani was a 10-year FDNY veteran and dog lover described by his mom as “compassionate.”
