According to the city’s Office of Emergency Management, 16 adults and four children were displaced while two people were injured during a fire at a Bronx apartment building Tuesday.
What You Need To Know
According to the city’s Office of Emergency Management, 16 adults and four children were displaced while two people were injured during a fire at a Bronx apartment building Tuesday
Firefighters responded to the fire on West 176th Street and Davidson Avenue around 9 a.m. and found fire on the top floor of this six-story building and between the roof and the ceiling of the top floor, according to officials
The Red Cross is helping the 20 displaced tenants with lodging and other resources
A Citizen App video showed orange and red flames shooting out of the roof of the building located at 1775 Davidson Avenue.
“The lady screamed,’ Hey, fire, fire in my apartment! Everybody get out,’” Christian Herrera, who is a neighbor of several of the fire victims on the building’s top floor, said.
He said they told him it was inside their apartment.
According to FDNY officials, firefighters responded to the fire on West 176th Street and Davidson Avenue around 9 a.m. and found fire on the top floor of this six-story building and between the roof and the ceiling of the top floor.
“Our teams made an aggressive interior attack,” FDNY Deputy Chief Michelle Fitzsimmons said. “They aggressively made holes in the roof so that they could attack the fire.”
Residents of a sixth-floor apartment and neighbors also told NY1 they believe the fire started in the apartment and spread to the neighboring unit. Both units had holes in the ceiling.
Fire officials said they were able to stop the fire from spreading to other units, to other floors and to the other wing of the building.
“Because of the holes that we cut in the roof, we know that they’ll be at least two apartments that are going to be vacated,” Fitzsimmons said.
Herrera, who lives on the floor below, spent hours helping his neighbors salvage what they could from the burned apartment.
“Yeah… [the] whole apartment [has] been broken,” he said. “Have to change everything. Ceiling, walls.”
Across the hall, a devastated husband and father said the fire occurred on the day of his daughter’s 14th birthday. He said it left a hole in the ceiling of her now ash-covered bedroom.
“Three [people] here,” Ronald Mercano said. “[My wife and I] and my daughter.”
Mercano said his daughter was at school when the fire occurred.
“Two years ago, we had a fire here,” Antoine Suave said. “I got all the water damage. My whole apartment was damaged. So they had to put us in a shelter.”
“So I feel bad for the other people on this side that’s going to have the same problems that I had,” he continued.
Although two people were injured, fire officials said everyone made it out safely.
“Everybody is OK,” Herrera said. “Thank God everybody is OK.”
The Red Cross is helping the 20 displaced tenants with lodging and other resources.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, according to officials.
Fire officials say 63 units, including 192 EMS and FDNY personnel, responded to the fire.