Results tagged “fatalfire”

After the Queens fire that killed three and injured four others in an illegally subdivided home, people are speaking out against illegal subdivisions. Queens Civic Congress president Corey Bearak told the NY Times, "It’s not just about taxing sewer lines and overcrowding in schools and parking. Ultimately, what happens with these fires, it manifests itself in people dying, and it’s absolutely outrageous." And some tenants have no idea they are living in dangerous apartments or rooms, with one saying "We didn’t know. Where are we going to go? It makes me angry." Landlords have said they bought the buildings with the subdivisions already in place.

As debate continues over whether a fire dispatcher's typo led to three deaths and four injuries in a Woodside, Queens home on Saturday, it turns out the basement apartments where the victims lived had been eyed by the Department of Buildings before. According to the Daily News, the two-family home "had been illegally converted into a five-family residence with another seven single rooms"—but when the DOB inspected it in 1990 and 2004, they found nothing wrong!

Firefighters responding to a deadly Woodside fire that killed three and injured four in an illegal basement apartment yesterday could have arrived sooner — had they not been routed to the wrong address first. A 911 operator mistakenly entered a two instead of a five and sent Engine Company 292 and Rescue Company 4 on a "wild goose chase" to 62nd Street instead of 65th Street, a delay that cost firefighters about 2 minutes and 30 seconds, according to the fire union.

Firefighters are investigating the cause of a blaze that killed a woman in an apartment at 250 West 104th Street yesterday before 6 p.m. The Post reports the woman's mother attempted to rescue her 48-year-old daughter but the daughter's bedroom was "mysteriously blockaded, according to neighbors who responded to the mom's cries for help." (NY1 says the door was blocked with suitcases.) The daughter died of smoke inhalation; more than 60 firefighters fought the fire.

The 19-year-old former volunteer firefighter who is now suspected of setting a building fire that left four dead was apparently suspended from the Lawrence Fire Department because he set a fire in May 2008. Newsday reports that Caleb Lacey lit a fire in a Dumpster behind an exercise club he went to and "told police about the earlier blaze during questioning" about the fatal fire last month. Lacey's lawyer said that his client just burned garbage and leaves, "It's really irrelevant to the allegations. It doesn't prove anything," and insists his client is innocent. However, police believe that Lacey wanted to play the hero, and doused a stairwell with accelerant, set it ablaze, and went back to the firehouse to wait for the 911 call. With their only exit blocked (the fire escape was removed earlier), a mother and three children were fatally trapped.

A volunteer firefighter was charged with arson and four counts of murder for allegedly setting a fire that killed a mother and three children in Lawrence last month. WCBS 2 describes Caleb Lacey, 19, as a former volunteer firefighter, but Newsday says he was a volunteer with the Lawrence/Cedarhurst Fire Department at the time of the fire. The fire occurred in the stairwell of a building with a laundromat on the first floor and apartments on the second; officials had found traces of accelerant at the scene. Some tenants survived by jumping out of the apartment's windows, but others died—and it was discovered the building's fire escape was removed in 2003. No details were given for a motive.

The Fire Department says that a faulty extension cord sparked the early morning five-alarm fire in a Chinatown tenement yesterday morning. The blaze started in the 3rd floor apartment of Tony Wong, 33, who was found dead by firefighters, and his girlfriend Anna Luu, also 33, who died later at a hospital. Three other people were seriously hurt, nine firefighters also suffered injuries, and dozens of people—about 60 families from the building at 22 James Street as well as two others—were evacuated. A fire official told the NY Times, "The building had no fire alarm. It is a very old building. By code it would not be required to," and many tenants escaped by heading to the roof, where some jumped to neighboring roofs.

A day after a fatal Chinatown building fire, at least two people died in a Queens apartment building fire on 223rd Place in Bayside. WCBS 2 reports that the fire broke out around 6:30 a.m. and that the FDNY had it under control under an hour later. Two bodies were found inside the building. WABC 7 adds, "Heavy flames and smoke tore through the two-story structure, sending debris flying. Initial reports were that an explosion ripped through the second floor apartment." And 1010 WINS had this report: Officials believe the fire was suspicious and that a can of gasoline was found at the scene.

The fire in a Lawrence apartment building that claimed the lives of a mother and three of her children has been called "suspicious" by Nassau County officials. Newsday reports that "natural and accidental causes for the fire have been ruled out, and that agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would be assisting the police department's arson/bomb squad and homicide squad in the investigation."

A jury found a Bronx building's former owner and its current owner guilty of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment for a 2005 apartment fire. The apartment had been subdivided, creating a fatal warren for firefighters to navigate; six firefighters ended up jumping out of a 6th floor window, with two, Lt. Curtis Meyran and firefighter John Bellew (pictured), falling to their deaths. A firefighter told NY1, "We were very satisfied today with this decision from this jury here. It's not a reason to celebrate in any way, it doesn't bring John or Curt back. We're still very disappointed with the decision from Friday. All I can think is that jury made a very dangerous job that much more dangerous with their decision," in reference to last week's not guilty verdict for the tenants who subdivided their spaces.

Earlier this morning around 5:45 a.m., a fire broke out in an apartment above a laundromat in Lawrence. WABC 7 reports that two people are dead and that "at least four children were rescued from the apartment." There may be other occupants still missing: "One Nassau County fire official told Newsday that, due to what was termed 'a language barrier' on scene, it is unclear nearly two hours after the blaze started if those occupants had been trapped in the building or if they had escaped." The location of the fire, which is being battled by fire departments from Lawrence-Cedarhurst, Inwood, Meadowmere Park, Woodmere, Lynbrook, Long Beach and Elmont, is near the Lawrence LIRR station. Update: Newsday now says four people were killed in the fire: A 46-year-old woman, 19-year-old man, a 10-year-old girl and a 9-year-old girl.

The 10-year-old survivor of a Chelsea fire that claimed his parents' and three sisters' lives was taken off life support yesterday. Jonzan Joa-Balbuena had been at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, in critical condition, since the Saturday blaze. He was later found to be brain dead, and his relatives decided to take him off his respirator and donate his organs. His uncle said, "We tried to do our best for him... we prayed hard. He knows we tried to keep him alive." And a family advocate who was helping with funeral arrangements for the other deceased family members wept to the Daily News, "I have to buy a [funeral] suit for the little boy now, after buying clothes for the other children, too." The FDNY found the apartment's smoke detector had been disabled.

Yesterday, the FDNY said that the Chelsea apartment fire that claimed five lives was likely caused by a child playing with matches or a lighter. Fire officials apparently found remnants of matches or a lighter in the kitchen, "where papers atop it fueled the blaze," according to the Post. Neighbors also said one of the children "played with fire in the past." But Leonel Balbeuna, brother of the mother who died alongside her husband and three children, said, "There's no way they played with matches. If they say it was matches, they need real proof." Tenants of the building, owned by the NYC Housing Authority, are holding an emergency fire meeting, about the building's firetrap conditions--there are no fire escapes, the window guards are difficult to remove, and the layouts are tricky.

Fire officials said that the fire on West 18th Street that took the lives of five family members was caused by a "juvenile playing with a lighter or matches." The lone survivor, a 10-year-old boy, is in "dire condition," according to the Post. Fire officials have also been urging New Yorkers to check their smoke detectors and make sure they have batteries and are working (landlords are required to install them in apartment buildings, but tenants must maintain them)--as smoke detectors were disabled in both the apartments of the Chelsea fire and the fatal Bushwick fire. Also, develop an escape plan in case of a fire.

Fire officials say a smoke detector had been unplugged and its battery removed in the Brooklyn apartment where a fire left a 33-year-old man and his 12-year-old nephew dead early yesterday morning. It was second fatal fire from the weekend, after a fire in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood claimed the lives of five family members.

Fire officials say that the smoke detector in a 6th floor Chelsea apartment that claimed five lives yesterday morning had been unplugged. The Daily News reports that the "smoke detector did not go off. The battery had been removed and the wires disconnected."

The Fire Department released its report into the fatal seven-alarm fire at the former Deutsche Bank building yesterday, and there doesn't seem to be one focus for the blame. Instead, there are many: Per the Daily News, it "blames the FDNY for not conducting mandatory inspections; the Buildings Department for not issuing a formal permit for demolition and the building's contractor for shoddy work that turned the condemned skyscraper into a death trap."

The Bronx DA's office says an 83-year-old engineer lied about using steel in a building that caught fire and collapsed and left two firefighters dead in 2006. Jose Vargas, who pleaded not guilty, was arraigned in court yesterday.