At Least 19 Dead, Including 9 Children, in Massive Fire at NYC Apartment

Hospitals are desperately working to save the lives of more than a dozen people critically injured by smoke in a fire that killed 19 people, including nine children, in a Bronx apartment building.

About 200 firefighters battled the five-alarm fire that started in a duplex apartment on the third floor of Twin Parks North West apartment building at 333 East 181 Street in the Tremont section of the Bronx just before 11 a.m. Sunday.

At least 44 people were injured, with 13 “clinging to their lives” in nearby hospitals. Several are intubated.

They are spread out among hospitals like Jacobi Medical Center, Westchester Medical Center and New York Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell

Authorities worked through the night to confirm the names of at least a dozen of the victims.

They are cross-checking identities with those reported missing to confirm numbers.

The 19 people who were killed, including 9 children, were found in the stairwell on various floors of the building, and investigators will look into why the thick heavy smoke was able to travel to all floors, leaving victims unconscious.

Many of the victims are Muslim immigrants from the West African nation of Gambia.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams urged all to seek help and assured their information would not be passed on to federal immigration authorities. He appeared on “Good Morning America” Monday morning to provide an update on the tragedy.

“We just want, right now, to give the families the support they deserve and let the marshal’s do their job to determine what happened here,” Adams said.

He called the firefighters who responded to the deadly fire heroes.

“Many of them, their oxygen tanks were on empty but instead of turning back and exiting the building they pushed through, through the smoke,” he said.

It is New York City’s deadliest blaze in three decades.

FDNY Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said a malfunctioning electric space heater, plugged in to give extra heat on a cold morning, started the fire in the 19-story building.

Flames were confined to the apartment, and smoke alarms were operable, but the door was left open, allowing heavy smoke to spew out through the building.

Mayor Adams said “a maintenance issue with this door” may have kept it from automatically closing, allowing the smoke from an apartment fire to spread through the building.

“It appears the ability to have the smoke spread is due to the door being open. We do have a law as was mentioned that it should close automatically. There may have been a maintenance issue with this door and that is going to be part of the ongoing investigation,” Adams said on “GMA.”

Eyewitness News reporter Josh Einiger spoke with the man who lived in the apartment where the fire started.

“We was sleeping and then my kids were screaming saying fire, fire,” Mamadou Wague said.

The fire started in Wague’s third floor duplex, where he lives with his wife and eight kids, one of whom was trapped on a burning bed.

Wague has burns on his nose from when he leapt through the flames to rescue his daughter, who is burned but alive.
“I don’t want anybody life — I don’t want to hear anybody dead in this fire, that’s what I worry about,” Wague said.

Firefighters arrived on site three minutes after the initial fire call and were met with fire in the hallway of the building.

Speaking to the resilience of the firefighters who battled the blaze, Mayor Adams said many of the firefighters’ oxygen tanks eventually became empty and “they still went through the smoke.”

Residents described the events that unfolded as “traumatizing” as they escaped from the building during the fire.

“It was a lot of smoke so we had to stop at the sixth floor and we were able to get into a neighbor’s home. We stayed there until the firefighters came and they were able to guide us out,” apartment resident Fatima said.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she is “horrified by the devastating fire.” She added, “My heart is with the loved ones of all those we’ve tragically lost, all of those impacted and with our heroic FDNY firefighters. The entire state of New York stands with New York City.”

Hochul was also on site where she noted that she spoke with a mother who lost her entire family in the fire and sent a message to the victims that “we will not forget you, we will not abandon you.”
Dramatic video posted to social media show fire and smoke gushing out of multiple windows in the building.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that portable electric heaters are involved in about 1,100 fires per year.

The National Fire Protection Association, claims space heaters were most often responsible for the home heating equipment fires, accounting for more than two in five fires, as well as the vast majority of deaths (81%) and injuries (80%) in home fires caused by heating equipment.

This was the second major fire in the Bronx over the weekend. A four-alarm fire in the Fordham Heights section of the Bronx that began early Saturday morning injured a firefighter and displaced three families.

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Original Article: Bronx fire: Hospitals work to save critically injured after 19 killed, including 9 children, in massive fire on East 181st – ABC7 New York (abc7ny.com)