Man dies in Wash. Hts. building fire
Described by neighbors as ‘sweet’ elderly resident who lived there for decades
A massive fire tore through a Washington Heights apartment building during Saturday’s extreme cold snap, killing an elderly resident who had lived on the fourth floor for decades, FDNY and heartbroken neighbors said.
The blaze erupted inside the W. 180th St. building near Pinehurst Ave. about 6:15 a.m., as temperatures hovered around 4 degrees.
Firefighters found heavy flames shooting out of a fourth-floor apartment in the five-story building.
As they raced up to the fourth floor, they couldn’t get inside and had to pop the door off its hinges, FDNY sources said.
The victim, whom neighbors identified only as Omar, was found in the burning apartment about 25 feet from the door. He died at the scene.
The apartment was very cluttered, which fed the fire, fire officials said.
Omar, neighbors said, was in his late 70s or early 80s, neighbors said. Police said the deceased man is 77, but did not release his name.
“He lived in the building a long time like 30 years plus,” building tenant Natalia Acevedo told the Daily News. “He was a sweet, cranky old man.”
The elderly tenant had mobility issues to boot, Acevedo said.
“He couldn’t move around much,” she said. “I knew him here all my life. Now they’re going to bring his body out and I can’t let my kids see that.”
A fourth-floor tenant who lived across the hall from Omar was roused from her bed by a neighbor banging on her door.
“My neighbors were yelling that there’s a fire and let’s go,” she remembered.
Evacuated residents were ushered to the nearby Port Authority’s George Washington Bridge bus terminal to keep warm.
“This is bad,” she said. “It’s the coldest day in New York City and this happened.”
It took more than 100 firefighters nearly three hours to put out the fierce blaze.
The fire had been put out by 9:15 a.m. No other injuries were reported.
Fire marshals had been sent in to determine what caused the fire Saturday. Firefighters remained at the scene Saturday clearing away icicles that formed on the windows from all the water put on the fire.
Slippery ice had formed both inside and outside the building and windows on the third, fourth and fifth floors were destroyed, neighbors said.
Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro said fire units could have gotten water on the fire earlier if the dispatched engine company had a fifth firefighter attached to them, raising a decades-long debate between the firefighter union and City Hall.
Only one of the four engine companies dispatched to the blaze had a fifth firefighter, which could have helped get hose lines up to the fourth floor quicker, said Ansbro, who called on FDNY leadership to assign a fifth firefighter to city engine companies this weekend as the five boroughs suffered under extreme cold temperatures.
Ansbro said he was told that the department would monitor the situation and move resources if necessary.
Engine companies lost a fifth firefighter under the Bloomberg administration. Over the years the FDNY managed to ensure that 20 engine companies in the city’s most fire-prone areas have a fifth firefighter assigned to them. Continued talks about increased staffing have been mired in union contract negotiations ever since, fire officials said.
“If these engine companies had a fifth firefighter, that would mean that there would have been two additional firefighters on that line,” Ansbro said Saturday. “They would have gotten in place sooner and the fire may not have been that advanced.
“The FDNY is effective at two things, saving lives and saving money,” the union head continued. “When you know you have a known serious extreme weather incident coming you got to put one of those skills aside. Every other agency that deals with the weather doesn’t look at their budgets at times like this.”
The department provides extra staffing during major storm events like blizzards and hurricanes, but not during cold snaps, an FDNY official said.
“The FDNY has highest staffing levels and send more units to fires than any fire department in the country,” the official said.