{"id":255305,"date":"2026-06-04T15:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T15:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/255305\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T15:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T15:35:10","slug":"faulty-refrigerator-sparked-bronx-apartment-building-fire-that-killed-2-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/255305\/","title":{"rendered":"Faulty refrigerator sparked Bronx apartment building fire that killed 2 teens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A faulty refrigerator compressor sparked the massive blaze that tore through a Bronx building in April, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2026\/05\/02\/bronx-fire-michelle-gonzalez-nakayla-moreno-8791732\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">killing two teens visiting the building<\/a>, FDNY officials said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The fire in the Belmont building sent panicked residents \u2014 including one who had caught fire \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2026\/04\/22\/survivors-jump-from-fire-escapes-in-fatal-bronx-fire-as-bystanders-help-save-lives\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">jumping from a second-floor fire escape as they screamed for help<\/a>, witnesses said.<\/p>\n<p>Nakayla Moreno, 19, and Michelle Gonzalez, 17, died after getting trapped in the fire that broke out about 1:30 p.m. April 21.<\/p>\n<p>Moreno was staying with her boyfriend when a five-alarm fire ripped through the building on E. 187th St. near Belmont Ave. Gonzalez was visiting a friend who lives there, according to their families.<\/p>\n<p>Eleven other people, including five firefighters, were hospitalized following the blaze,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fdnysmart.org\/\" data-mrf-link=\"https:\/\/www.fdnysmart.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FDNY<\/a>\u00a0officials said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"Fire victims Nakayla Moreno (left) and Michelle Gonzalez. (GoFundMe)\" width=\"1044\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-04-28-140808b.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"8848129\" \/>Fire victims Nakayla Moreno (left) and Michelle Gonzalez. (GoFundMe)<\/p>\n<p>FDNY fire marshals have now determine a faulty refrigerator compressor sparked the deadly blaze.<\/p>\n<p>FDNY officials say the door of the ground-floor apartment where the fire started and the building\u2019s front door were left open, feeding the fire oxygen and allowing it to rapidly spread to upper floors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI heard people screaming, \u2018Fire! Fire!\u2019\u201d Odai Albahri, who works in a nearby store told the Daily News following the April 21 blaze. \u201cI brought two ladders from the store and brought two people down from the fire escape. One guy was on fire, his whole body. He was crying and screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"FDNY firefighters respond to a fire on E. 187th St. in the Bronx on Tuesday, April 21, 2026.\" width=\"4032\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_5913-1.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"8787222\" \/>FDNY firefighters respond to a fire on E. 187th St. in the Bronx on April 21. (Barry Williams \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n<p>When firefighters arrived, they set up their own ladders to grab more people trapped on fire escapes.<\/p>\n<p>More than 84 FDNY units \u2014 including 270 firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics \u2014 were called in to handle the job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A faulty refrigerator compressor sparked the massive blaze that tore through a Bronx building in April, killing two&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[128,98,100,99,262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,265],"class_list":["post-255305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-bronx","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255305","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=255305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}