Doctors race to save lives after NYC fire that killed 17

NEW YORK (AP) — Doctors raced Monday to save survivors of New York City's deadliest fire in three decades as authorities began investigating how thick smoke could billow through a high-rise, trapping many families inside and killing 17 people, including eight children.

Dozens of people were hospitalised, including several in critical condition, after Sunday's fire in the Bronx.

Mayor Eric Adams called it an “unspeakable tragedy” at a news conference near the scene.

“This tragedy is not going to define us,” Adams said. “It is going to show our resiliency.”

Adams lowered the death toll, saying that two fewer people were killed than originally thought.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said patients were taken to seven hospitals and “there was a bit of a double count.”

The dead included children as young as 4 years old, said City Council Member Oswald Feliz.

Investigators determined that a malfunctioning electric space heater, plugged in on a cold morning, started the fire in the 19-storey building.

The flames damaged only a small part of the building, but smoke poured through the apartment's open door and turned stairwells — the only method of escape in a building too tall for fire escapes — into dark, ash-choked death traps.

Adams said the building had self-closing doors and that investigators were looking into whether a door malfunctioned.

“There may have been a maintenance issue with this door. And that is going to be part of the ... ongoing investigation,” the mayor told ABC's “Good Morning America.”

Some people could not escape because of the smoke, Nigro said.

Others became incapacitated as they tried to get out. Firefighters found victims on every floor, many in cardiac and respiratory arrest, Nigro said.

Limp children were given oxygen after they were carried out. Some who fled had soot-covered faces.

Firefighters continued making rescues even after their air supplies ran out, Adams said.

“Their oxygen tanks were empty, and they still pushed through the smoke,” he said.

An investigation was underway to determine how the fire spread and whether anything could have been done to prevent or contain the blaze, Nigro said.

Large, new apartment buildings are required to have sprinkler systems and interior doors that swing shut automatically to contain smoke and deprive fires of oxygen, but those rules do not apply to thousands of the city's older buildings.

The building was equipped with smoke alarms, but several residents said they initially ignored them because alarms were so common in the 120-unit building.

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