City officials Monday zeroed in on a possible malfunctioning apartment door for allowing choking smoke to spread throughout a 19-story Bronx high-rise during a massive weekend blaze that killed 17 people.
FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said at a press briefing that flames from the fatal Sunday fire were contained to the second-floor duplex apartment where a space heater sparked the blaze — but that thick smoke spewing through the open doorway of apartment 3N proved deadly.
Apartment doors in the building are supposed to be self-closing at least partly to prevent the spread of fires, but it “was not functioning as it should,” Nigro said. “The doorway was not obstructed. When the door was fully opened, it stayed fully open because it malfunctioned.
“The fire was contained to the hallway just outside the two-story apartment, but the smoke traveled throughout the building, and the smoke is what caused the deaths and serious injuries,” the commissioner said.
An open door on a 15th-floor stairwell contributed to the tide of smoke through the building, Nigro added.
A resident on the building’s third floor, where the fire broke out, told The Post on Monday that very few of the apartment doors in the structure are self-closing.
“My door does not close by itself,” said the woman, who only gave her first name, Jackie. “If I open my door, I have to close it right quick ’cause sometimes there be flies in the hall I don’t want coming in.
“If I don’t close my door myself, my door will stay wherever I put it.”
Jackie said she jammed towels around her door frame during Sunday’s blaze, cut the screen outside her window and leaned outside to breathe until firefighters came to her rescue.
The building’s heating was not strong enough to keep residents warm that morning, forcing them to rely on space heaters, she said.
“They’re sending up just enough heat to say they’re sending up heat, but it’s not enough to keep you warm, and if you don’t use a space heater then you use your oven,” she said. “You can’t lounge around without a house coat on.”
Mayor Eric Adams promised Monday that city fire marshals would be conducting an “extremely thorough” investigation in the wake of the deadly Bronx inferno — including examining the potentially faulty doors.
“We have a law here that requires doors to close automatically. We are looking at [that] through the investigation with the fire marshals, who will be extremely thorough with the investigation,” Adams said on CNN’s “New Day” Monday morning.
“We’re looking to determine if there was some form of malfunctioning of the door,” the mayor said.
The Sunday morning blaze was believed to be caused by a faulty space heater and killed at least eight kids and nine adults and injured at least 63 other people, officials said.
During a virtual press conference Monday, Big Apple firefighter union heads explained how open doors endanger residents in fires like Sunday’s blaze.
“When the apartment door or stairwell door is left open, it exposes the whole building to the toxic air,” FDNY-Fire Officers Association President Lt. James McCarthy said. “There wasn’t breathable air in the stairwell.
“Not closing the door exposes everyone in the building to smoke and toxic gasses.”
Andrew Ansbro, FDNY-Firefighters Association president, added, “When a stairwell door is left open, it turns the stairwell into a chimney.”
According to the city’s Housing Department’s fire safety regulations, self-closing doors are required in all buildings with three or more apartments.
Adams stressed the importance of closing doors during fires.
The mayor floated reviving a public service initiative he recalled from his childhood during a series of media appearances Monday, the day after the horrific five-alarm fire.
“We took away one lesson from this, and it’s closing of the door, it’s imperative,” he said on 1010 Wins, adding that a program will be put in place in schools, senior centers, and other similar settings. “It was the smoke that took the lives, not the fire itself.”
“It’s almost muscle memory that you flee in an apartment, and sometimes you forget about closing a door, and that’s why we’re going to double down on the closing the door PSA that I knew as a child, and we want other generations to understand that,” he explained on Fox 5.
“We just need to make sure as [a] government that we give people the right instruction to save lives, so I’m going to do that,” he added on CNN.
On its website, the FDNY Foundation calls on “all New Yorkers to always close the door when escaping a fire.”
The proposal comes as the number of people who died in fires in the Big Apple rose by 16 percent in 2021 — with 73 fatalities compared to 63 in 2020, according to FDNY data.
Sunday morning’s deadly blaze sent New Yorkers on searches for family members injured or killed in it, after some of the 200 FDNY firefighters kept fighting the inferno despite running out of oxygen in their tanks, Adams revealed.
The 19-story, 120-unit building where the fire occurred was cited for more than two dozen violations and complaints, despite $25 million in state loans for repairs. The non-fire-related citations, including for vermin infestation and faulty elevators, came after the 2013 infusion of state cash.
The blaze was the deadliest fire in the five boroughs in nearly 32 years, since 87 people perished in March 1990 in the Happy Land social-club arson attack.
An online fundraising campaign has as of Monday morning raised more than $284,000 for the victims of the blaze.
Additional reporting by Steven Nelson
