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Faulty Fire Doors Were Flagged Six Times Before Deadly Bronx Blaze, Report Says

One resident said their fire door hadn’t self-closed once in the 27 years they’d lived there.

Inspectors repeatedly flagged broken fire doors at the Bronx high-rise where 17 people died in a blaze on Sunday, the New York Post reports. Earlier this week, fire officials said deadly black smoke was able to spread through the building because some of the self-closing doors that were designed to trap fire and smoke failed to close behind panicked residents as they fled from the flames. Now, the Post reports inspectors from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development cited the apartment block six times between 2013 and 2019 for failing to properly maintain its self-closing doors. One broken door was reportedly flagged in March 2017 and wasn’t fixed until July 2020, though other issues appear to have been fixed within months. Building resident Cookie Dennis said: “My door doesn’t self-close and never has... I have lived here 27 years, and I don’t ever remember the door closing by itself.” The building was owned by billionaire real-estate investor Rubin Schron until December 2019. Schron didn’t comment on the Post’s report.