there would be numerous deaths and more than 60 injured – Telemundo New York (47)

At least 19 people have died, including nine children, in a Bronx apartment building fire that was rated by New York City authorities as one of the worst in more than 30 years.

“This is going to be one of the worst fires we have witnessed here in modern times in New York City,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference several hours after the fire destroyed the building.

New York City Fire Department Commissioner Dan Nigro identified at least 63 people who were being treated for various injuries due to smoke and fire. At least 32 of those were initially taken to about five different county hospitals with life-threatening injuries and another nine were serious.

The names and ages of the victims have not been released.

The vast majority of the casualties suffered severe smoke inhalation, Commissioner Dan Nigro said. Firefighters who entered the building found victims on all floors of the building and many were experiencing cardiac and respiratory arrest.

“There were certainly people trapped in their apartments throughout the building,” said Nigro, calling the smoke conditions “unprecedented.”

Fire investigators pinpointed the source of the fire in a duplex apartment on the second and third floors of the building. The apartment door was left open, allowing flames to spread and smoke to rise throughout the building, the commissioner added.

Nigro said it was “unusual” for the smoke to spread the entire length of the property.

The department estimates that 200 of its members responded to the 19-story residential building in East 181st Street in Fordham Heights around 11:00 a.m. The fire was brought under control shortly before 1:00 p.m.

“This is going to be one of the worst fires we have witnessed here in modern times in New York City,” Mayor Eric Adams said at an evening news conference.

Nigro and Adams called Sunday’s disaster one of the worst fires in New York City in at least three decades. In 1990, the fire of Happy Land claimed 87 lives in the Bronx.

Angelo Patri High School in Webster Avenue it was opened to any of the residents displaced by the fire, police announced Sunday afternoon.

Videos circulating on social media show thick smoke billowing from the lower levels of the building where firefighters appeared to focus their attention.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management tweeted a warning to nearby residents so that they close the open windows and avoid the smoke.

Fire chiefs were available to investigate the cause of the fire, but the commissioner said he does not believe investigators consider the source to be suspicious.

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