Family horror
Bx. dad, daughter die in fire blamed on hot plate
A HOT PLATE placed next to bedding sparked a fast-moving fire Sunday that killed a teenage girl and her father in a Bronx housing complex, authorities and neighbors said.
Nelson Rojas, 62, and his daughter, Yolanda Rojas, 14, were found unconscious about 12:15 p.m. on the fourth floor of a building in NYCHA’s Throggs Neck Houses.
Medics rushed them from their home on Dewey Ave. near Quincy Ave. to Jacobi Medical Center, but they could not be saved, cops said.
Sixty firefighters had the blaze under control about an hour later, according to officials. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries.
FDNY officials said the blaze started accidentally. It wasn’t immediately known if a lack of heat caused the father and daughter to use the hot plate to keep warm.
Aurora Ronda, whose daughter was a friend of Yolanda’s, said several buildings in the NYCHA complex have experienced problems with their heating systems. Despite the cold — such as 21 degrees at noon Sunday — Ronda said she fends off desperation.
“I don’t even pull out my heater,” Ronda said. “I just pull out some extra blankets. I don’t trust it.”
Neighbors said the father and daughter were the only people who lived in the apartment.
“Everyone was hoping they weren’t in there,” Diamond Paredes, 24, awoke to smoke in her room.
“When you are used to seeing someone every day, he’s like family to everyone. They brought Nelson out and everyone was watching them try to resuscitate him and nothing was happening. He that said who wasn’t moving, he wasn’t saying anything. It was really hard. And when they brought his daughter out it was like, ‘OK, this is real. This is real.’ ”
Terrall Malone, 38, said he was outside when he spied trouble.
“We saw the smoke first and ran to the front of the building,” Malone said. “Two people came running out yelling, ‘Fire!’ We ran in up to the fourth floor and it was covered in smoke. So all we could do is just bang on doors and get who we could get out. It’s only from his apartment that nobody came out. “It’s sad, you know. They were always together. He would take his daughter to school, do what he had to do. You know he was just a good, regular guy. He didn’t bother nobody. He wasn’t out on the street. They were just a regular, ordinary family. They stayed together, they passed together, and now they’re in a better place.”
Paredes said the victims were good neighbors.
“He would always say ‘Hi’ to you, he wasn’t rude,” Paredes said. “His daughter was a precious child. It was always just him and his daughter. She was very polite. She liked to come out and say ‘Hi’ to everyone and play with the kids. But she was never out late here playing, her father was very protective. She always had good grades.”
The city medical examiner’s office will determine the exact cause of death for the Rojases.
The blaze broke out just over two weeks after a raging inferno in a Bronx apartment building killed 13 people — including four children, one just 7 months old. That fire was followed by one in Brooklyn that killed an elderly man and woman.