The blaze was caused by a space heater — and made catastrophically worse because the door to the unit where it erupted was left open. Hallways were turned to dark, ash-choked horrors.
Firefighters found victims on every floor, many in cardiac and respiratory arrest, Nigro noted at a Sunday press conference. Some could not escape because of the sheer volume of smoke, he said.
Jose Henriquez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who lives on the 10th floor, said it seemed that's what happened when alarms started blaring Sunday.He and his family stayed, wedging a wet towel beneath the door once they realized the smoke in the halls would overpower them if they tried to flee.
Luis Rosa said he also initially thought it was a false alarm. By the time he opened the door of his 13th-floor apartment, the smoke was so thick he couldn’t see down the hallway. “So I said, OK, we can’t run down the stairs because if we run down the stairs, we’re going to end up suffocating.”The Red Cross is assisting at least 21 families displaced by the blaze.
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