Bronx Fire: 4 Children Among 12 Killed In Apartment Fire

THE BRONX, NY – At least 12 people are dead and four more are critically injured in a huge fire Thursday night in The Bronx, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio. Four of the dead were children.

Four people rescued from the building at 2363 Prospect Ave. in the Belmont neighborhood are critically injured and "fighting for their lives," de Blasio said. Twelve others are expected to survive.

The fire appears to have been started by a child playing with a stove, de Blasio said Friday morning. Every floor of the building was consumed by flames.

"This is the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city," de Blasio said at the scene of the fire early Friday morning. "Based on the information we have now this will rank as one of the worst losses of life in a fire in many, many years."

Five people died in the fire — two of whom were found in a bathtub apparently trying to shield themselves from the flames. Seven others died at hospitals. The injured were taken to Jacobi Medical Center and St. Barnabas Hospital.

Three girls — ages 1, 2 and 7 — were killed, police told local news media. A boy was also among the dead but his age was not known. Three women — 19, 37 and 63 years of age — were killed. Also dead are four men and a woman who have yet to be identified, the NYPD said.

The fire broke out around 6:51 p.m. on the first floor of a five-story, 25-unit apartment building at 2363 Prospect Ave., FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said. Flames spread throughout the building, killing people on several different floors.

Department of Buildings records show six open violations, including one for a faulty smoke detector, though it wasn't clear if that detector was where the fire started.

More than 160 firefighters responded to the scene, fire officials said. The five-alarm fire was declared under control at about 9:15 p.m., fire officials said.

It was the deadliest fire in the borough since the Happy Land Fire killed 87 in 1990.

The fire was one of two deadly blazes within eight hours. A fire in a row house in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn killed two men just after 3 a.m. Friday, police said.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Photo by FDNY