PICTURED: First identified victims of Bronx fire that killed 12 as Mayor De Blasio reveals the city’s worst blaze for 25 years was caused by a three-year-old boy playing with a gas stove
Twelve people died and 15 more were injured in a Bronx apartment building fire Thursday night
Fire started by a three-year-old boy playing with the gas burner on the stove inside of first-floor apartment
Three victims identified as two- and seven-year-old Kylie and Kelesha Francis and their mom Karen Francis, 37
Another victim of fire inside building at 2363 Prospect Ave has been identified as 19-year-old Shawntay Young
Four of the victims are children, including a one-year-old who died in its mothers arms in their apartment
Mayor Bill de Blasio said four of the 15 injured are in critical condition and still fighting for their lives
According to city records, building had at least six open code violations – two from August 2017
Two of the violations were for defective smoke and carbon monoxide detectors inside a first-floor apartment
By Valerie Edwards and Regina F. Graham
DailyMail.com
29 December 2017
A three-year-old boy playing with the gas burner on the stove inside of a first-floor apartment started the deadly Bronx building fire that killed 12 people and left 15 hospitalized Thursday night.
New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said during a press conference on Friday morning that the young boy had a history of playing with the stove burners and turning them. Nigro said the boy’s mother was not in the same room as him when the fire started but was alerted to it by his screams.
She quickly grabbed him and another two-year-old child before running out of the first-floor apartment. Nigro said that she left the door open, which caused the fire to then immediately spread up the ‘open stairs like a chimney’ to the fifth floor in the building.
Of the 12 who perished, Nigro said seven women and five men are among the dead. He also said that in those numbers, five of the victims are children.
‘This tragedy is, without question, historic in its magnitude,’ Nigro said. ‘Our hearts go out to every family who lost a loved one here and everyone fighting for their lives.’
Officials have not released the names of the victims who died in the historic blaze, but Elain Williams identified four of her relatives who all tragically perished.
She told the New York Post that her two nieces Kylie Francis, aged two, and Kelesha Francis, aged seven, died, along with their 37-year-old mother, Karen Francis, who is her sister. She said she also lost her 19-year-old daughter Shawntay Young.
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