12 DEAD IN BX. BLAZE
1-year-old among vics of ‘historic tragedy’ in apartment building
MOTHERS AND their children frantically scrambled down fire escapes to survive the inferno that consumed their Bronx homes.
They dashed out into the frigid night in whatever they were wearing, without jackets, without shoes, just holding on to their lives. They were the lucky ones. A raging fire quickly swept through the five story building on Prospect Ave. at E. 187th St. — taking with it 12 lives — including a 1-year-old child.
The toddler’s final moments were spent in a bathtub, held by its mother, as they perished, sources told the Daily News.
Heartbreak was etched of the faces of firefighters and medics who tried in vain to save the victims.
Five people perished inside the 25-apartment building, and seven died at two hospitals, authorities said.
Four others were in critical condition at St. Barnabas Hospital and Jacobi Medical Center, officials said.
Twelve other people were rescued from the building, Mayor de Blasio said.
Among the missing is a U.S. Army soldier.
Kwabena Mensah, 62, said his 28-yearold son, Emmanuel, was home for the holidays. Mensah said his son’s roommate last saw him when the fire broke out.
“He was telling the roommate to not come out of the apartment because there was smoke. But when they rescued everyone from the windows, we couldn’t find him. I went to four hospitals, I can’t find him” Mensah told The News.
Witnesses recalled terror in the bonechilling night.
Thierme Diallo fled the building in a panic, awakened by a neighbor.
“Someone knocked on my door yelling ‘Fire! fire! fire!’ I left my cell phone. I took only my wallet because I need to save myself.”
Diallo shivered in his sandals and gym shorts.
“I don’t know how I got out. By the exit there was glass coming down in the flames. I didn’t have socks or shoes. Nothing.”
Luc Hernandez, a fourth-floor resident, said she came home about 15 minutes after the fire started and “saw black smoke everywhere.”
The shaken 37-year-old told The News she rushed into her apartment, grabbed her 11- and 7-year-old boys and scrambled down the fire escape.
Shivering underneath a Red Cross blanket, Hernandez said she saw other neighbors rushing down fire escapes.
Meanwhile, someone who lives across the street from the blaze said he saw children rushing down metal grate fire escapes.
“All they had was shorts and shirts,” Rafael Gonzalez said. “No socks. No nothing. I know they were cold. They were screaming for help.”
Gonzalez, 19, said it seemed like the fire-
fighters were so busy battling the blaze they couldn’t help the kids right away.
Thick smoke smell lingered long after the flames were gone, as Blasio visited the fire scene.
“This is the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city in at least a quarter of a century,” de Blasio said standing on a street filled with black ice.
“We’re shocked by this loss,” Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said, calling the tragedy “historic.”
The men spoke just blocks away from a 1990 arson at the Happy Land Social Club that claimed the lives of 87 people.
More than 160 firefighters responded to the five-alarm blaze near the Bronx Zoo. The inferno broke out at 6:51 p.m. on the first floor and quickly spread upward. Firefighters responded in three minutes, after receiving more than a dozen 911 calls.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear. Sources said the blaze may have been sparked by a space heater, but de Blasio said was too early in the investigation to tell.
A database in the New York City Housing Preservation and Development revealed one of the apartments on the first floor — where the fire started — had open violations for bad carbon monoxide and smoke detectors.
Attempts to reach the building owners were unsuccessful.
Milka Garcia, who lives on the fifth floor of the building said she came home to find her children had been evacuated.
Garcia, 40, said her three kids — one girl and two boys — saw tons of smoke and had to get out through an emergency door.
She said her 10-year-old daughter went to school with one of the victims, who’s about 8 years old, at Public School 205.
“This is horrible,” Garcia said of the fire. “It makes me sad because they were my neighbors, and friends of my daughter’s.”
City Councilman Ritchie Torres said he cried when he learned a child was among the dead in the disaster inside his district.
“It’s traumatic and tragic,” he said. “The only silver lining is the heroism of the FDNY.”
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said “we’re all struggling with unanswered questions and broken hearts.”