The electric bicycle was stored in the worst possible place: the doorway of the apartment. When its battery erupted in flames after midnight on Wednesday, the family that lived there was trapped inside.
Firefighters crawled through heavy flames to reach them, on the 11th floor of a public housing building in the Bronx, but they were too late to save an 11-year-old boy who was pronounced dead at the hospital, officials said.
Four other members of the family, including two teenagers, were hospitalized in critical condition, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a Wednesday morning news conference. The fire was contained within one apartment and was extinguished in a little over an hour.
“Firefighters plunged into the fire and the smoke to rescue those who were trapped,” Mr. Mamdani said. “Frankly, without their heroism, more lives would have been lost today.”
The blaze, at the Patterson houses in Mott Haven, comes as the number of lithium-ion battery fires in the city has soared this year.
Wednesday’s blaze was the 401st e-bike battery fire of the year, Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said. The death of the boy, whose name was not immediately released, was the sixth such fatality this year, and 74 other people have been injured in battery fires, she said. During all of last year, there were 292 battery fires, one death and 51 injuries, she said.
Outside the building, where the charred bike was on display, officials took turns at the microphone expressing frustration and pleading with New Yorkers not to let electric bikes charge unattended.
“All of the fires that we have seen and experienced are preventable!” Vanessa Gibson, the Bronx borough president, shouted. “They are preventable.”
John Esposito, the Fire Department’s chief of department, said that firefighters arrived on the scene just three minutes and 38 seconds after the fire was reported at 12:50 a.m.
The firefighters forced the apartment door open and had to make their way past flames and the e-bike to reach a victim, Chief Esposito said.
The police said that the injured included a 15-year-old boy, a 33-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man. None of their names were released.
Once a fire begins, Ms. Bonsignore said, battery cells go into a state called “thermal runaway.” A typical household fire extinguisher is no match for a battery fire, Chief Esposito said. The mayor added that the battery fires are known to “start quickly and spread incredibly rapidly.”
Electric bikes are widely used by delivery drivers. “We know how valuable they are to people’s livelihoods,” Mr. Mamdani said. “So we need to remind New Yorkers how to use them safely.”
Lisa Bova-Hiatt, the chief executive of the New York City Housing Authority, said that the agency had considered banning e-bikes from public housing.
But “after a lot of back and forth, a lot of resident engagement,” the authority decided to allow one bike per apartment, she said. The bike must not block exits, and an adult is supposed to be present and awake in the apartment while the battery charges.
Mr. Mamdani was asked at the news conference if the city might provide special charging rooms in public housing. “We’re going to explore every single avenue to keep NYCHA residents safe, to keep New Yorkers safe,” he said.
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