More than 200 firefighters, police and paramedics answered the call when the fire erupted under the Commodore Barry Bridge on February 2, 1978. No one told them they were wading into one of the worst illegal chemical dumps in the nation. Today, disease is decimating the ranks of those who fought the blaze, according to an Inquirer investigation that traced nearly all who had been there. Serious illnesses - cancer, vascular and neuromuscular disorders, kidney failure - have afflicted at least 45, about one in five. Of those, 28 are dead.