deadly explosion<\/a>\u00a0that killed a hardworking\u00a0Queens\u00a0father and injured more than 30 firefighters and first responders,\u00a0FDNY\u00a0officials and the fatal victim\u2019s family said on Wednesday.<\/p>\nInvestigators determined the blast and two-alarm fire were accidental and caused by \u201cthe ignition of flammable vapors associated with industrial-grade paint within the confined space,\u201d\u00a0FDNY\u00a0officials said in a statement Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Xiaoyuan Li, 56, of\u00a0Flushing,\u00a0Queens, was killed and 36 people, mostly responding firefighters, were hurt when a fire sparked the massive explosion at May Ship Repair.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a hardworking man who loved and took care of his family,\u201d Li\u2019s son,\u00a0Jerome Li, 22, told the\u00a0Daily News\u00a0at his family\u2019s home in\u00a0Flushing. \u201cObviously, our family is saddened by his death.\u201d<\/p>\n
Li had worked as a painter and sandblaster at the\u00a0Staten Island\u00a0dockyard for roughly four years. He immigrated to the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0from Yanbian prefecture in\u00a0China, located near\u00a0North Korea, around 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
The fatal fire victim\u2019s son said he and his family are eager for more information on what sparked the blaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe statement didn\u2019t mention the cause of ignition,\u201d the son said. \u201cIt\u2019s still preliminary speculation of what caused the fire. We\u2019re still waiting for the full report.\u201d<\/p>\n
He spoke to the\u00a0Daily News\u00a0as he was on his way to his father\u2019s funeral Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
A fire marshal and a firefighter injured in the massive fire and explosion remain hospitalized from critical injuries they suffered in the Friday blast at the dry dock in\u00a0Mariners Harbor.<\/p>\n
Fire Marshal\u00a0Christopher Cuccaro, 46, of the K-9 unit, and Firefighter\u00a0Vincent Delgado, 36, of Ladder 80 in\u00a0Port Richmond, were both critically injured in the explosion, according to the\u00a0FDNY.<\/p>\n
They were both struck by the explosion as they searched a confined space for the trapped workers.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0FDNY\u00a0received a report of workers trapped around\u00a03:30 p.m. Friday, along with a fire in the back of the shipyard on\u00a0Richmond Terrace\u00a0near\u00a0Andros Avenue.<\/p>\n
That was followed by a major explosion nearly an hour later, at\u00a04:20 p.m.<\/p>\n
Firefighters scrambled to reach workers trapped in the basement of a metal structure near the docks, which was on fire.<\/p>\n
The dock had been under construction for nine months before the fire broke out. The ship repair company is a family-owned business with fewer than 50 employees.<\/p>\n
The site was formerly home to the sprawling\u00a0Bethlehem Steel Corp.\u00a0shipyard operation, which was a major employer on\u00a0Staten Island\u00a0during World War II. The shipyard was closed in 1960.<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised first responders for \u201crunning toward danger so others could escape.\u201d<\/p>\n
_____<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 New York Daily News. Visit at\u00a0nydailynews.com<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leonard Greene, Kerry Burke and Colin Mixson New York Daily News (TNS) NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014 Flammable paint vapors ignited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-246558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246558","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=246558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}