{"id":111257,"date":"2026-01-24T17:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T17:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/111257\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T17:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T17:52:07","slug":"1-dead-hundreds-evacuated-in-nyc-apartment-fire-sparked-by-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/111257\/","title":{"rendered":"1 dead, hundreds evacuated in NYC apartment fire sparked by explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2212 A gas explosion in a Bronx apartment building sparked a four-alarm fire, killing one person and injuring over a dozen others, just after midnight, New York City<\/a> officials said Jan. 24.<\/p>\n

Hundreds had to be evacuated from the 17-story building before a severe winter storm<\/a> is set to hit most of the United States<\/a>. Temperatures in the Bronx were around the single digits when the explosion occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very, very difficult night, on a cold night,\u201d Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore told reporters.<\/p>\n

Massive winter storm set to blanket nation. See photos<\/p>\n

1 of 5<\/p>\n

Overnight snowfall left the morning commute in downtown Rochester, NY a little slippery on Jan. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n

At 12:09 a.m., New York City firefighters were investigating the smell of gas at the Boston Secor Houses when there was a gas explosion on a building’s top floors, FDNY said. Firefighters were on the 16th floor when the explosion occurred, according to John Esposito, chief of department. Other firefighters were trapped in the elevator.<\/p>\n

A fire broke out inside multiple apartments on the 15th, 16th and 17th floors, Esposito said. Severe structural damage affected six apartments on the 15th and 16th floors.<\/p>\n

Images showed flames and smoke billowing out of top-floor windows. A fourth-alarm fire, hundreds of units responded to the scene, in what Esposito described as a dangerous operation. Firefighters had to enter apartments to shield people who were trapped near windows as flames raged.<\/p>\n

One person, whose identity wasn\u2019t immediately known, died in the incident, FDNY said. Eleven people and a firefighter were transported to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries. One person was in critical condition at a local hospital.<\/p>\n

FDNY declared the fire under control just before 5 a.m. Fire marshals are investigating the cause of the explosion.<\/p>\n

Leila Bozorg, deputy mayor for housing and planning, told reporters residents in about 150 units had to be evacuated. Boston Secor Houses, previously a New York City Housing Authority property<\/a> built in 1969, is now under private management, the housing agency said in an email. The building had been undergoing renovations, including “gas work that was completed and signed off on,” Bozorg said.<\/p>\n

Officials established a recovery center at a local school. As of 9:15 a.m., the Red Cross registered 67 households, a total of 201 people including 64 children, for emergency assistance, organization spokesman Frederic Klein said in an email.<\/p>\n

Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said recovery is expected to take the next couple days, amid inclement weather during the winter storm. Iscol warned residents to stay off the roads and practice fire safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this happened tomorrow during the snowstorm, this is a much, much more complicated and dangerous event,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service office in New York issued winter storm warnings<\/a> for the region. Conditions are expected to disrupt transportation and cause white outs, with heavy snowfall and frigid air into next week.<\/p>\n

Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email at\u00a0emcuevas1@usatoday.com<\/a>\u00a0or on Signal at emcuevas.01.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NYC apartment fire leaves 1 dead, hundreds evacuated before snowstorm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2212 A gas explosion in a Bronx apartment building sparked a four-alarm fire, killing one person…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49796,49846,49845,49847,18665,9,22796,56,63,65,64,29568],"class_list":["post-111257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-boston-secor-houses","tag-bronx-apartment-building","tag-gas-explosion","tag-investigating","tag-john-esposito","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-firefighters","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-winter-storm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}