The New York City Fire department has released footage showing the aftermath of the massive fire that ripped through a Bronx apartment building on Thursday.
Images shows burned out rooms and stairways and grim interiors, while shards of glass and chunks of ice litter the sidewalk outside.
On Friday, city officials said a 3-year-old boy playing with the burners on a kitchen stove started the fire that killed 12 people.
The toddler had a history of fiddling with the stove in the kitchen of his family’s first-floor apartment, his mother told officials investigating the deadliest fire in the city since 1990.
On Friday city officials said a 3-year-old boy playing with the burners on a kitchen stove started the fire that killed 12 people.
The toddler had a history of fiddling with the stove in the kitchen
It was deadliest fire in the city since 1990
Shortly before 7 p.m. (midnight GMT) on Thursday the child, who had been left unattended, started screaming as the kitchen filled with smoke and fire, Daniel Nigro, the city’s fire department commissioner, told reporters at a news conference.
“People had very little time to react,” Daniel Nigro, the city’s fire department commissioner told reporters
A burned out hallway.
“People had very little time to react,” he said. “They couldn’t get back down the stairs. Those that tried perished.”
Children aged one, two and seven as well as a boy whose age was unknown died, along with four men and four women, according to the New York Police Department.
Among the dead were at least three members of the same family Karen Francis, 37, Charmela Francis, seven, and Kylie Francis, two.
Authorities said firefighters rescued 12 people from the building and four people were in the hospital in critical condition.
More than 160 firefighters responded to the four-alarm blaze, the first arriving about three minutes after emergency calls came in. About 20 people were already on fire escapes, Nigro said.
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