At least 19 people were killed — including nine children — when the city’s deadliest fire in more than 30 years tore through a Bronx apartment high-rise Sunday morning. Choking, blinding smoke trapped many of the victims of the five-alarm blaze, which was blamed on a malfunctioning space heater turned on to help ward off the cold temps outside, according to the NYP.
“I heard a lot of kids yelling, ‘Help! Help! Help!’” resident Dilenny Rodriguez, 38, recalled of the screams echoing through her apartment on the ninth floor of the 19-story building at 333 E. 181st St. in Tremont. “It was dark.
The smoke was really bad. Those kids crying for help,” the emotional woman said. The blaze broke out just before 11 a.m. and was knocked down about an hour later — but not before what a shaken Mayor Eric Adams called “a horrific, horrific painful moment for the city of New York.”
NBCNY reported that the fire originated in a duplex on the second and third floors of the building but never extended past the unit and the hallway nearest the apartment, FDNY Commissioner Dan Nigro revealed. Smoke generated from the duplex blaze was able to filter out through an open door and spread throughout the 19-story structure, he explained.
“The door to that apartment unfortunately when the residents left was left open, it did not close by itself. The smoke spread throughout the building, thus the tremendous loss of life,” Nigro said at an evening press briefing.
The functionality of the building’s fire alarms was under investigation, but Nigro said one did alert a neighbor to the rising smoke and prompted the initial 911 call. He also said the building’s heat was working as well.
Hours earlier, the commissioner and Mayor Eric Adams revealed the devastating toll of the morning fire: a total of 63 people had suffered injuries. Thirty-two had been hospitalized with life-threatening injuries and another nine had injuries that were serious. Sadly, 19 of those victims died.
