Three people were killed, including a 16-year-old girl, and several others were injured in three separate fires within about 10 hours in New York City.
The latest blaze broke out in a Brooklyn home near Prospect Park early Friday, killing the teen and critically injuring two women in their 20s. Two other women in their 50s had minor injuries, officials said.
On Thursday night, a baby was hurt in a fire that erupted on the second floor of a Bronx apartment building. Residents fled on their fire escapes, and four people, including the baby, were taken to hospitals.
A few hours later, two brothers in their 40s died after a fire in their sixth-floor apartment, also in the Bronx. FDNY said cigarettes or some type of smoking material had been carelessly thrown away, which started the fire.
One of the brothers was found in the room where the fire started and the other was discovered elsewhere in the apartment, a fire chief on scene said. They were both unresponsive.
“It was a dangerous move to get in there,” the chief said.
Three firefighters were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
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Stephanie Ortiz was in her apartment across the hall, getting her things together for work, when she noticed smoke coming into her bedroom. She looked into the hallway and saw the door of the brothers' apartment engulfed in smoke, she said.
“I went to try to touch on the door, but it was too hot,” she said. “So I called on my other neighbors, got my brothers ready and headed down.”
Ortiz said as she and her family left the smoke-filled apartment building, they knocked on about 24 doors to let neighbors know about the fire.
