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Doctors fight to save those injured in the fire that killed 19 people in a Bronx building

2022-01-10T14:45:17.230Z


The deadliest fire in decades in New York City started with a failure in an electric heater, according to the researchers' first hypotheses.


By Chantal Da Silva -

NBC News 

and The Associated Press

Hospitals are fighting to save the lives of dozens of people who were seriously injured in an apartment building fire in the Bronx as the causes of New York City's deadliest disaster in the last three decades begin to unravel.

New York Fire Commissioner Dan Nigro said investigators are working on the hypothesis that the fire originated after 11 a.m. Sunday in a malfunctioning electric heater on the building's second floor.

Although the fire only damaged a small part of the building, the intense smoke spread up its stairs and corridors, trapping residents in their homes and making it difficult for them to escape.


Emergency personnel transport a fire victim to an ambulance.Lloyd Mitchell / AP

Nigro said the fire was able to spread because a door in the second-floor two-story unit, where the fire started, was left open or did not close automatically after residents fled.

He added that the building, which was built in 1972 with federal funds, had no fire escapes, only interior stairs.

"It appears that it was built without complying with the New York City fire code," the fire commissioner said.

The mayor of New York assures that the undocumented people affected by the fire should not be afraid to ask for help

Jan. 10, 202202: 50

More than 200 firefighters responded to the fire alert on 181 East Street, and the flames were contained around 1 p.m., the New York-based NBC news affiliate reported.

While responding to the fire, firefighters found victims on all floors

, many of them in cardiac and respiratory arrest, Nigro said.

According to the mayor, Democrat Eric Adams, firefighters continued to work to save lives even after their own air supplies were depleted.

"Their oxygen tanks were empty and they were still moving through the smoke," he said.

About 200 firefighters worked to contain the fire in the New York building

Jan. 10, 202202: 49

Nigro said an investigation was underway to determine how the fire spread and if anything could have been done to prevent or contain it.

The building was equipped with fire alarms, but several residents said they ignored them at first because they used to go off often in this building with 120 homes.

Newer buildings in the city are required to have water sprinklers and interior doors that close automatically to contain smoke and reduce the fire's access to oxygen.

These standards, however, do not apply to older buildings.

This is New York City's sad fire history

Jan. 10, 202200: 45

Mourning for the victims

The tributes to those who died in the fire have multiplied on social networks and some have asked how they can help their families, as well as the survivors.

At a news conference Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, claimed that many of the dead were

"immigrants who were working to climb that ladder, and their lives were turned off."

The fire partially affected the building located in the Bronx.Yuki Iwamura / AP

Through Twitter, Adams' office assured that all flags should continue to fly at half mast "as a sign of respect for the victims of the tragic fire"

until Wednesday afternoon.

The mayor's office invited people interested in helping those affected by the fire to donate to a fund launched to support the families of the victims and survivors.

"Your donation will go entirely to those affected," he said.

Nine children among those killed in the Bronx fire.

They locate more than 200 neighbors in a school

Jan. 10, 202203: 33

On Sunday night, a spokesperson for Bronx Park Phase III Preservation LLC, the building's owner, claimed that its alarm system had worked properly during the fire.

"There are no known problems with smoke alarms and it appears that the fire alarm system worked as designed," they stated in an email.

[Seven members of a family die in their home.

They suspect carbon monoxide poisoning]

The spokesperson also suggested that the gates had worked, saying that "the building has self-closing doors, as required, and there have been no related violations on the property."

The statement described the person in charge of the property as a joint venture of three groups of investors, issued a statement in which he offered his condolences for the victims of the fire and expressed his sympathy for the displaced, stating that it could offer "long-term accommodation term ”if necessary.

Dozens of families were displaced from their homes.Jeenah Moon / AP

"We are devastated by the unimaginable loss of life caused by this profound tragedy," he said.

"We are cooperating fully with the Fire Department and other city agencies as they investigate their cause, and we are doing everything we can to help our residents."

[The fierce fire in Colorado destroys more than 500 homes but does not cause deaths]

The fire is the deadliest in New York since 1990, when 87 people were killed in a fire at the Happy Land social club, also in the Bronx.

It also comes just days after a deadly fire in a Philadelphia single-family home that left 12 people dead, including eight children.

Authorities said none of the four battery-powered smoke detectors were working at the time.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-01-10

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