Officials who are trying to piece together how a fire in a Bronx high-rise was able to kill 17 people—including eight children—believe a door may have malfunctioned by staying open and allowing thick smoke to spread through the building, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Monday.
A senior police official told WNBC that the kids transported to hospitals who later died spanned ages 5 to 12.
They included two little girls who were just 5 years old, Fatoumata Dukureh and Hawa Mahamdou. Eleven-year-old Mariam Dukureh also perished from her injuries, along with three young boys, including 6-year-old Omar Jambay, Mustapha Dukyhreh, 11, and Toure Seydou, 12.
“There are many people fighting for their lives in the hospital who were transported, so this number could unfortunately increase again,” New York City Fire Commissioner Dan Nigro cautioned on Monday. “Our prayers are with them, our prayers continue to be with the families of those we lost.”
The fire appears to have been sparked by a space-heater that officials believe had been running for several days without a break. Nigro said that the heat-generating effort turned deadly when a blaze erupted and was largely contained on the third floor but quickly choked other units as thick black smoke billowed throughout the apartment block, killing at least 17 of its residents.
When asked Monday whether residents of the state-supervised Michell-Lama building were receiving adequate heat when the fire broke out, Adams said there were “no outstanding violations of our knowledge of a heat complaint in the building,” and added that the fire marshal would be investigating the issue.
“This is really an evolving crisis,” Adams said on Monday.
Officials had initially said the fire killed 19 people, but the mayor revised that death toll at a press conference Monday afternoon, saying nine adults and eight children had perished.
Earlier on Monday, Adams told 1010 WINS, “It was the smoke that took these lives, not the fire itself.”
Nigro confirmed that fire officials were “certain” that the fire started with a faulty portable electric heater. The fire then generated deadly plumes of smoke, he said.
“The fire was contained to the hallway just outside this two-story apartment, but the smoke traveled throughout the building and the smoke is what caused the deaths and the serious injuries,” he said.
City law requires apartment doors to automatically close for fire safety, but something appears to have stopped that from happening. Nigro said on Monday that officials were examining the building and videotape and would complete a full investigation to determine how and why the fire occurred.
Adams vowed meanwhile to “double down” on spreading a potentially life-saving message to close doors in the event of a fire.
“What we don’t want to do is just to add more trauma on a family that was simply trying to escape, a very dangerous and a very frightening experience,” Adams said before encouraging manual door-closing.
Adams said on Good Morning America that there may have been a “maintenance issue” with the door, which would be part of the investigation. He later told CNN: “The doors in the building did have self-closing mechanisms. We are just looking at that specific door.”
Nigro said Sunday that another door may have also been open from the stairwell to an upper floor, allowing the smoke to rise upwards throughout the building. “Smoke and heat travel upward, that we know—that’s what happened here,” he said. “The smoke spread throughout the building, thus, the tremendous loss of life and other people fighting for their lives right now in hospitals all over the Bronx.”
Officials confirmed Monday that 13 people remain in critical condition after the fire, and Adams said many victims are Muslim immigrants from the West African nation of Gambia. The Gambian Youth Organization, based next to the building where the blaze happened, has raised over $300,000 in direct relief for families affected by the fire.
Pope Francis offered his condolences to victims of the “devastating” fire, writing a Monday telegram to Cardinal Timothy Dolan offering “heartfelt condolences and the assurance of his spiritual closeness.”
The fire’s death toll was the worst suffered in New York City since 1990, when 87 people died in an arson attack at the Happy Land nightclub in the Bronx. “The numbers are horrific,” Adams said Monday.