The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
New York City Trump Tower fire death victim identified
MANHATTAN: Man, 67, died in hospital after the blaze at the block
A fire at Donald Trump’s New York skyscraper has killed one man and left four firefighters injured.
Todd Brassner, 67, who was in an apartment on the 50th floor of Trump Tower, in Manhattan, died in hospital after the unit was engulfed by the blaze.
Flames and thick black smoke were seen coming from windows of the building, where the President has a residence, on Saturday evening.
Some 200 firefighters and members of the emergency services rushed to the scene on Fifth Avenue while the New York Police Department closed surrounding roads.
The fire broke out shortly before 6pm local time (11pm GMT), filling floors of the 58-storey building with a “considerable” amount of smoke, the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) said.
Around 45 minutes later – before the fatality had been publicly announced – Mr Trump took to Twitter to praise firefighters for their response, saying they had extinguished the blaze.
The billionaire, who made his fortune in property, also attributed the construction of his eponymous tower to the fire’s limited spread.
“Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!” he wrote on Twitter.
FDNY commissioner Daniel Nigro said four firefighters suffered “non-lifethreatening injuries” in the blaze – the cause of which is not yet known.
“We found fire on the 50th floor of the building. The apartment was entirely on fire. Members pushed in heroically, they were knocking down the fire and found one occupant of the apartment,” he said in comments posted by the FDNY on Twitter.
“This was a very difficult fire. As you can imagine, the apartment is quite large, we are 50 stories up. The rest of the building had a considerable amount of smoke. Two-hundred firefighters and EMS (emergency medical services) members are on scene.”