12 killed in New York apartment fire begun by toddler
A THREE-YEAR-OLD boy playing with his mother’s oven accidentally started New York City’s deadliest fire in decades, turning an apartment building into an inferno that killed 12 people.
Smoke and flames swept up the stairwell in minutes, blocking the main route to safety, the city’s fire commissioner said.
The boy, his mother and another child were able to flee their first-floor apartment.
But they left the door open behind them, and it acted like a chimney that carried Thursday’s fire out of the apartment and through the fivestorey building, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.
At least 20 of their neighbours scrambled out via fire escapes but others could not.
‘People had very little time to react,’ Mr Nigro said.
Although firefighters arrived in just over three minutes ‘bravely [entering] the building and did everything they could – we did save a number of residents – this loss is unprecedented’, he said.
Twelve people died, including girls aged eight months, two and seven and a boy whose age was not given, officials said. Four other people were fighting for their lives. Excluding 9/11, it was the deadliest blaze in the city since 87 people were killed at a social club fire in the same Bronx district in 1990.
Thursday’s fire broke out just before 7pm in a century-old building which is close to the Bronx Zoo.
About 170 firefighters worked in bitterly cold temperatures to rescue dozens of people.