A 1-year-old boy died when fire tore through an apartment in the Bronx on Monday afternoon, and twin 6-year-olds were critically injured, the police said.
Firefighters arriving at the scene of the fire at Bainbridge Avenue and East 194th Street in the Fordham neighborhood found flames pouring out of an apartment on the second floor of a five-story building, said Malcolm Moore, an assistant fire chief. “Their search turned up three children that were removed from the fire apartment,” he said.
The boy was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital, where the 6-year-olds, a boy and a girl, were also being treated, the police said. Three other people were also injured, one of them seriously, and three firefighters sustained minor injuries, official said. The fire, reported shortly after 3:30 p.m., was declared under control an hour later. Its cause is still being investigated.
There have been several fatal fires recently in the Bronx, including one last Wednesday that killed three people and one on April 21 that killed two. A fire at an apartment building in Upper Manhattan last Monday killed three people and injured 14 others.
Chief Moore said that just as at some of those other recent fires, people fleeing the fire on Monday had left apartment doors open, allowing the fire to spread through the hallway.
“If there was one message that I could deliver across the spectrum to everyone here, and out there watching, it is, ‘Close the door,’” he said. “It’s tough to wrap your mind around having to do that, but the minute you close that door, you give everyone else in the building an opportunity to flee, and you give yourself your time to flee, by not allowing the fire to chase people.”
Andy Newman has reported from the New York region for The Times for more than 30 years.
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