Screenshot of blaze, l; photo from 26th floor, r, via Mickey Atwal
The Sunday morning fire in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment building that killed one man and seriously injured his husband was deemed accidental by the Fire Department. Apparently the cause of the three-alarm blaze was a power strip overloaded with electrical appliances in another resident’s apartment.
The fire start after 11 a.m. at The Strand, a condominium at 500 West 43rd Street, and it took about two hours to control. FDNY Chief of Operations James Esposito said, “We believe we have a power pack, extension cord with multiple outlets involved. A Christmas tree was part of the contents of the fire apartment.” Esposito also said, “My understanding is that when the occupant returned from shopping and he went to enter his apartment, he opened the door, it was full of smoke, he left, and the door remained in an open position… The fire received all the oxygen it needed to become a free-burning fire.”
A source told the Post, “[It was] probably one of those cheap dollar-store extension chords that overloaded the outlet. The fact that there was stuff around it, like the tree, to catch fire, and and it was up against a window so it vented out, made it [spread]. All indications point to that.”
h/t – gothamist
