Rocklanders Mourn FDNY Chief Killed in Gas Explosion

County residents are expressing shock and sorrow Tuesday after a Rockland native, Michael Fahy, was killed in an explosion in the Bronx.

SEE: Wake, Service for Fire Chief Michael Fahy

North Rockland Central School District Superintendent Ileana Eckert issued a statement:

The North Rockland Central School District community offers prayers and our deepest sympathy to the family of New York City Fire Battalion Chief Michael J. Fahy. Michael was a 1990 NRHS graduate and varsity athlete who excelled both in the classroom and on the soccer field. During his formative years in Thiells Elementary School and Haverstraw Middle School, Michael forged strong and lasting friendships that followed him to the highest ranks of the FDNY. His kindness and sense of humor will be forever missed. We are all devastated by this tragic loss and extend our condolences to the entire Fahy family.

Michael Fahy, North Rockland High School yearbook

Fahy was killed early Tuesday morning when a possible marijuana grow house exploded during an investigation into a possible gas leak at a suspected marijuana grow house. Twenty others were injured.

SEE: FDNY Chief, Hudson Valley Resident, Dies as Suspected Marijuana House Blows up

Fahy was a 17-year department veteran, chief of the FDNY's 19th Battalion and a father to three young children — two boys and a girl, ages 6, 8 and 11.

His death is being mourned across social media.

Fahy was "one of our rising stars," FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said with tears in his eyes at a press conference Tuesday morning at the New York-Presbyterian branch at the northern tip of Manhattan, where Fahy had been declared dead hours earlier.

"It's a terrible loss for the Fahy family," Nigro, who knew Fahy's father (also a fireman), told a crowd of reporters at the hospital. "It's a loss for the fire department family. We are a family. We feel it deeply. We feel it deeply today."

TOP PHOTO/ FDNY