Lhe fire started around 7:00 p.m. on Thursday in a kitchen on the first floor of a brick building, like there are thousands of in New York.
Firefighters took just over three minutes to arrive at the scene in the Bronx neighborhood.
“It was triggered by a three and a half year old child playing with the stove. The fire started and the mother was unaware of it. She was alerted by the cries “of the little one, who had already played with the burners in the past, explained the city’s fire chief, Daniel Nigro.
“She left the apartment with her three and two year old children and left the door open,” he continued, a gesture that allowed the flames to spread within minutes.
“The stairwell acted like a fireplace. The fire rose so quickly upstairs that people had very little time to react, ”he told a press conference on Friday. The inhabitants of this building which had 25 apartments “could not come down. Among those who tried, two died ”.
New York firefighters released a video on Friday showing the downstairs hallway, the walls of which are covered in soot. The water used by emergency services on the upper floors froze, forming stalactites on the stairs.
Between 1 and 50 years old
Five of the twelve victims – who were between 1 and over 50 – were found dead in the building, according to Nigro. The four children who died were three girls aged 1, 2 and 7, as well as a 7-year-old boy.
A deceased woman and girl were found in a bathtub filled with water in which they appear to have tried to escape the flames, according to several local media.
On Friday, the police communicated the identity of some of the victims, including Karen Francis, taken with her daughters Kylie (2 years old) and Charmela (7 years old). According to several American media, another deceased person, Shantay Young (19), was the niece of Karen Francis.
Four seriously injured people were still hospitalized on Friday, battling death, according to the fire chief.
“It is a terrible tragedy and families have been torn apart”, moved the mayor of the city, Bill de Blasio, speaking of “the worst fire in at least a quarter of a century”.
“It was very hard,” Joel Rodriguez told AFP. This 40-year-old lived on the ground floor, but was able to get out quite easily, although the smoke made “pitch black” in the common areas.
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