Nearly six years after an explosion ignited a nine-alarm blaze at a power station in South Boston, the first responders who fought the fire are suffering from chronic respiratory, sinus and digestive troubles, the Herald has learned.

In interviews with the Herald, Boston firefighters who were saturated with lubricating oil while battling the Oct. 1, 2002, fire inside the massive Sithe New Boston Station described surgeries and hospitalizations to clear sinuses, remove tonsils and adenoids, and drain fluids in their lungs.

They also described persistent acid reflux, headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath, runny noses, fatigue, nasal polyps and allergies.

“We felt like the ducks and seagulls from the Exxon Valdez,” said firefighter Kevin F. McNiff, 47, who spent hours fighting the fire inside the Summer Street plant with his company from Ladder 18.

“I wanted to know why I was getting these symptoms and why the other guys were getting them and what the long-term effects are,” said McNiff, a father of three from Braintree. “I just know I was never the same after that. I’m still not the same, but I do my job.”

The firefighters’ plight is the subject of civil litigation against the plant operators, Sithe Energies Inc., Exelon New Boston LLC and Exelon New England Power Services Inc., court records show.

In a complaint filed in Suffolk Superior Court, attorneys for 10 Hub firefighters claim that the oil and thick oily smoke let off by the fire quickly rendered useless the Scott Air-Paks that the firefighters use to breathe. The firefighters said they had to remove the masks.

“We had masks on at first and then with all the oil seeping into the regulator and into the seams it was sliding off our face,” said firefighter John F. Nee, 36, who was with Engine 39. “We were drinking (oil) through the regulator. I took the mask off because I couldn’t breathe. It was useless.”

Toxic oil fueled blaze

The complaint alleges that it took plant personnel two hours to notify fire officials of shut-off valves to halt the automatic flow of lubricating oil. That lubricating oil fed automatic pumps powering the burning equipment and fueled the fire for hours, the complaint states. Once the valves were shut off, firefighters extinguished the blaze, court records show.

“The bottom line is that none of us would be experiencing these symptoms if they had shut the pump off,” said Fire Lt. John F. McDonald, 45, who was the commander of Engine 39 at the scene.

McDonald described directing his company to the first floor, which was just below the burning generator spewing a greenish oil from the third and fourth floors. He said the burning oil was falling through gaps in catwalks onto the firefighters who battled the blaze from under a concrete archway.

“It was literally like looking at a curtain of fire. Not fire like you see on a three-decker. It was fire like you see coming out of a blowtorch,” said McDonald, a 21-year veteran. “Every now and then it would seem we were finally getting a hold of it and then all of the sudden it would flare right back up to the same that it was and would start to come over our heads a bit.”

He expressed frustration at the plant personnel for failing to shut off the automatic pumps sooner.

“Whoever it was that finally said it saw us in there for three hours and decided to say, ‘They just keep pumping oil into that.’ When were you going tell us that? Meanwhile we were in there taking a beating for three hours,” said McDonald, a father of four. “As soon as they shut the pump off I bet you it was 20 minutes. The smoke was gone. The fire was gone.”

Companies won’t comment

Exelon spokeswoman Valencia McClure said the Chicago-based utility did not acquire the plant until a month after the fire, on Nov. 1, 2002. “We are not able to comment on active litigation,” she said. Attorney Mark R. Freitas, who is handling the litigation for Sithe and Exelon, declined to comment in an e-mail to the Herald. Sithe was acquired by the Houston-based Dynegy Inc. in 2005.

Exelon still operates a 20-megawatt gas turbine unit called the “L-Street Jet” at the site. Unit 1, a 350-megawatt natural gas intermediate unit, was retired on Nov. 2, 2007. The unit damaged in the fire was never returned to use, according to public meeting minutes on file at the South Boston branch of the Boston Public Library.

A Fire Department report states the explosion was sparked by an “improper start up of an electrical turbine.” That explosion caused a “major oil fire” in a generator.

The first alarm was called at 4:25 p.m., the report states. By 5:43 p.m. fire commanders called for a ninth alarm, the highest alarm level. All told, 23 engines, 13 ladder trucks and 190 firefighters were summoned to the fire. Sithe estimated that approximately 5,625 gallons of lubricating oil were either burned or released during the fire, according to state Department of Enviromental Protection records.

Retired Boston firefighter Ted O’Reilly, 69, of Dorchester, was the acting captain on Ladder 19.

“Prior to this fire I never even took an aspirin,” said O’Reilly, who retired in 2003 after suffering a heart attack at the fire station. “I’ve always been in busy houses so I’ve gone to a lot of fires, a lot of type of fires. Ship fires. Sub-sub-basement fires, stuff like that. This was one of the most scariest.”

Nee, who has 14-year-old twins, said he’s worried about his future.

“I did my job that day. With all that stuff in there I have health problems,” said Nee, who has a persistent cough and has endured two surgeries to clear his sinuses. “I want my kids to be taken care of in case something happens to me.”