By Rebecca White, Rocco Parascandola, Thomas Tracy, Barry Paddock, Leonard Greeene
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — Three people were killed and five people critically hurt by a fast-moving fire in an upper Manhattan apartment building early Monday, officials said.
The blaze broke out on the second floor of the six-story building on Dyckman St. near Broadway in Inwood about 12:30 a.m. and quickly grew to three alarms, FDNY officials said. Firefighters were on scene in three minutes.
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“This fire was a very serious fire,” said FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said. “It unfortunately resulted in many patients.”
The fire spread up the building’s lone staircase to eight apartments.
Medics treated 14 people, including a firefighter with minor injuries. Three residents died at the scene, while five more were hospitalized with critical injuries, FDNY officials said. Four more residents were taken to local hospitals with moderate or minor injuries.
The fire was brought under control at 3 a.m. Its cause has not yet been determined.
About 100 residents were displaced by the fire.
Lilian De Los Santos , 63, who has lived on the second floor for two years, said the fire forced her to go out the back of the building.
“One lady, when she went out, she broke a leg when she came down the fire escape,” De Los Santos said in Spanish. “I wanted to help the lady who broke the leg but I couldn’t help. I said, ‘’I’m sorry.’”
Michael, 30, who lives on the fifth floor, could see smoke coming in under his apartment door.
“When I tried leaving the building on the main stairs, the fire was all in the hallway,” he said. “It was too hot. I opened the door but the fire tried to get in the apartment. I closed the door.”
He used the fire escape instead.
Fire officials said that, once again, open doors near a central staircase had allowed the flames to intensify and shoot upstairs to other apartments.
“We are still working with the fire department and with the Department of Buildings to determine what the cause of the fire was and also whether there was any negligence on the part of the landlord that contributed to the fire,” said Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Diana Levy.
“It is under the housing maintenance code a requirement that all doors be self-closing. And so if tenants are propping them open, we do need to do more to educate them on why not to do that. But we also need to make sure that landlords are complying with making sure all doors are self-closing.”
Mayor Mamdani said firefighters have enough obstacles to deal with without the added challenges of fire-feeding open doors and vehicles that block fire hydrants.
“There have been a number of times where I’ve responded to fires, I’ve arrived on the scene to meet the incredible first responders that our city has, and have been shown the fact that there was a car parked in front of a fire hydrant that then delayed the response to a five-alarm fire,” Mamdani said at an unrelated news conference in the Bronx.
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