VIDEO: A elderly man lost his life after an apartment fire broke out in the Allerton section of the Bronx Tuesday morning.
Firefighters got numerous calls for people trapped in their apartments by smoke at the city-run Eastchester Gardens just before 3:15 a.m.
12 units with 60 fire and EMS personnel arrived on scene. Fire crews were met by heavy smoke and fire streaming out of an apartment window.
A 70-year-old man was found in the rear of a fourth-floor apartment and pronounced dead at the scene.
The man’s identity has not yet been released.
He is now the 14th person age 65 or older to die in a fire since November 9.
A troubling pattern over the past two months shows a notable increase in older New Yorkers dying in fires.
Of the at least 60 people who have died in fires so far the year, 38 of them were 65 years or older — about 63%
WABC-TV ABC 7 New York City