A police officer is seen in the apartment building in the Bronx on Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, in New York. Doctors are working to save the lives of several people gravely injured when smoke from a fire knocked them out or trapped them in their apartments in the New York City high-rise building. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Apartment Building Fire
NEW YORK (AP/77WABC) — Investigators are trying to determine why safety doors failed to close in a New York City high-rise when a deadly fire broke out.
The failures allowed thick smoke to billow through the tower and kill 17 people, including eight children, in the city’s deadliest blaze in more than three decades.
Fire officials determined that an electric space heater started the fire Sunday in the 19-story building in the Bronx.
The flames damaged only a small part of the building, but smoke poured through the apartment’s open door and turned stairwells into death traps. The stairs were the only method of escape in a building too tall for fire escapes.
The New York City Medical Examiner said Tuesday that all 17 victims of the Bronx apartment fire were killed by smoke inhalation. Several residents remained in critical condition at local hospitals.
Among the eight children who died in Sunday’s fire in Fordham Heights were three young members of the Dukuray family who tried to make it down to safety but perished in the smoke.
