A series of fleeting choices and troubling circumstances sent smoke billowing through a Bronx building, leaving 17 people dead and scores of bereaved survivors.
Soon, though, it would prove the first in a series of fleeting choices and troubling circumstances that combined to fuel a staggering tragedy.
On Sunday, he and his wife had space heaters running in both bedrooms and their sitting room because the building’s heat ”don’t work for nothing.” He said he had complained, but it hadn’t been fixed. By that point, smoke was spreading fast. When residents of 3N fled, the door to the unit was left open and stayed that way, investigators say, despite New York City law that requires entrances to apartments and stairwells be spring-loaded so they close automatically. The company that owns the building said in a statement Monday that maintenance workers repairing a lock on that door recently had inspected the self-closing mechanism and found it working.
Glenn Corbett, a fire science professor at John Jay College in New York City, said closed doors are vital to containing fire and smoke, especially in buildings without systems to douse a blaze.
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