19 Dead, Including 9 Children: NYC Apartment Fire

Fire tears through Bronx apartment building Sunday in what’s become New York City’s deadliest blaze in more than three decades.

QUICK FACTS:
  • Stefan Ringel, a senior adviser to Mayor Eric Adams, confirmed the death toll, saying the children killed were 16 years old or younger, according to the Associated Press.
  • Thirteen people remained hospitalized in critical condition, Ringel said. In all, more than five dozen people were hurt. Most of the victims had severe smoke inhalation, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.
  • Adams called the fire’s toll “horrific” and said “this is going to be one of the worst fires that we have witnessed during modern times.”
  • Firefighters “found victims on every floor and were taking them out in cardiac and respiratory arrest,” Nigro said. “That is unprecedented in our city.”
  • Sunday’s death toll was the highest for a fire in the city since the Happy Land fire.
  • It was also the deadliest fire at a U.S. residential apartment building since 2017 when 13 people died in an apartment building, also in the Bronx, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association.
200 FIREFIGHTERS RESPONDED:
  • Approximately 200 firefighters responded to the building on East 181st Street around 11 a.m. Sunday, notes AP.
  • Initial reports said the fire was on the third floor of the 19-story building, with flames blowing out the windows.
  • News photographers captured images of firefighters entering the upper floors of the burning building on a ladder, multiple limp children being given oxygen after they were carried out and evacuees with faces covered in soot.
WHAT RESIDENTS SAID:
  • Resident Vernessa Cunningham, 60, said she raced home from church after getting an alert on her cellphone that the building was on fire. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was in shock,” Cunningham said from a nearby school where some residents gathered. “I could see my apartment. The windows were all busted out. And I could see flames coming from the back of the building.”
  • Building resident Cristal Diaz, 27, told the New York Post she started putting wet towels at the bottom of her door after smelling smoke while drinking coffee in her living room. “Everything was crazy,” she said. “We didn’t know what to do. We looked out the windows and saw all the dead bodies they were taking with the blankets.”
BACKGROUND:
  • Sunday’s fire originated in a duplex apartment spanning the second and third floors, Nigro said.
  • Firefighters found the door to the apartment open, he said, which apparently allowed the fire to quickly accelerate and spread smoke upward, according to AP.
  • The fire is not believed to be suspicious, but the cause is under investigation, officials said.
  • The 120-unit building in the Twin Parks North West complex was built in 1973 as part of a project to build modern, affordable housing in the Bronx.

Reporting for this story was provided by The Associated Press.

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