Trump Tower resident dies in 50th-floor blaze
US president praises firefighters and quality of skyscraper after art dealer’s death
A fire in a 50th-floor apartment at Trump Tower in New York killed a man and sent flames and thick, black smoke pouring from windows of the president’s namesake skyscraper.
New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the cause of Saturday’s blaze was not known but the apartment was “virtually entirely on fire” when emergency crews arrived after 5.30pm.
“It was a very difficult fire,” Mr Nigro told reporters outside the building in Manhattan. “The apartment is quite large.”
Todd Brassner, 67, who was in the apartment, was taken to hospital but died a short time later, the New York Police Department said. Property records showed Brassner was an art dealer who had bought his 50th-floor unit in 1996.
Officials said four firefighters suffered minor injuries. An investigation has been launched.
Shortly after news of the fire broke, Mr Trump, who was in Washington, wrote on Twitter: “Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!”
Asked if that assessment was accurate, Mr Nigro said, “It’s a well-built building. [But] the upper floors, the residence floors, are not sprinklered.”
Sprinklers were not required in New York City high-rises when Trump Tower was built in 1983. Subsequent updates to the building code required commercial skyscrapers to install sprinklers retroactively but owners of older residential high-rises are not required to do so unless the building undergoes major renovations.
Some fire-safety advocates pushed for a requirement that older apartment buildings be retrofitted with sprinklers when New York City passed a law requiring them in new residential high-rises in 1999 but city officials at the time said it would be too expensive.
Mr Trump’s family has an apartment on the top floors of the 58-storey building but he has spent little time in New York since taking office. The headquarters of the Trump Organisation is on the 26th floor.
Mr Nigro said firefighters and Secret Service members checked on the condition of Mr Trump’s apartment.
Lalitha Masson, a 76-year-old resident, called it “a very, very terrifying experience”. Ms Masson told The New York
Times that she received no announcement about leaving, and that when she called the front desk no one answered.
“When I saw the television, I thought we were finished,” said Ms Masson, who lives on the 36th floor.
She said she started praying because she felt it was the end.
“I called my oldest son and said goodbye to him because the way it looked everything was falling out of the window, and it reminded me of 9/11,” Ms Masson said.