Sad day in Bronx, NY Today

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Breaking News -

Just saw on the news today that a fire has killed MANY children in Bronx, NY. early reports are it could be from a space heater or a power strip that was overloaded.

This is something so sad.......and when children die it makes everything just so much more a bite of reality.

Ironically I was in Buffalo, NY just a few days ago and we had a discussion of older wiring and the use of high drawing applicances like space heaters and the use of power strips and how dangerous they are in homes that have older wiring and not up to todays capacity standards.

Sad to say the K & T Wiring may not kill ya but the appliances that get plugged into them may aid in causing issues...and it is not a K & T alone thing.

Another sad thing is that nothing lasts forever and neither does electrical wiring and the proper function of OCPD's and so on, We have to take into account age with anything......

Anyway such a sad day.......I believe as many as 15 children have died and some adults as well.

[Thomas H. Dietrich]

We still have problems with people with zero smoke detectors in their homes here. We don't know how to get people to install them, without beating them with a 2x4. Sad, just sad, we had several children die recently because of lack of smoke detectors.

Sometimes when you scream no one hears you.

tom

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Agreed Tom........This is why the Safer Housing Foundation is such a wonderful thing for providing smoke detectors to the hearing impaired. However, something needs to be done to try and reach out to ALL people with regards to smoke detectors.....

If just one life is saved.........then it is a success.....

[Thomas H. Dietrich]

We even started a free smoke detector installation program. When I was in a fire company, handing out smoke detectors didn't work. They often sat unused on kitchen counters, etc. You even have to hold a person's hand, and install it for them. I understand the elderly, but the healthy man who won't lift a screwdriver..... Damn I'm a sexist.

tom

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Sad thing is you are 100% correct.....it is very EASY to talk about doing it versus getting them to REALLY do it. I think to myself....HELL if they just had battery operated ones on double sided tape on the wall......something...Anything....just get them up....

But you are right.....just not sure how to motivate them if the lives of 15 or more children being killed did not motivate someone...what will.

[Thomas H. Dietrich]

Originally Posted by pabernathy

what will.

Just crazy, Bethlehem has imposed some CO detector fine, like hundreds of dollars. Yet, it's a hot bed for non-installed smoke detectors.

tom

[jbreazeale]

I would bet that the housing was sub-standard. Happens down here all the time, and 95% of the time it happens to the poor living in drafty housing for which they are paying the landlord way more than it's worth.

Ignorance, coupled with the quite natural desire to stay warm in these conditions is a deadly combination.

[David A. Andersen]

There was an apartment fire in Nashville this week where one adult and three children were killed in the fire. Smoke detectors were recently installed in the complex but the batteries were taken out! Probably to power their iPods.

[Joseph Hagarty]

New York Fire Kills 8 Children, 1 Adult

Friday March 9, 2007 8:31 AM

AP Photo NYLL104, NYLL103, NYJD106, NYJD118, NYJD114
By VERENA DOBNIK
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Screams poured from the burning building along with smoke and flames: ``Help me! Help me! Please! Please!'' Bystanders looked up to see a woman toss two children out the window one at a time to those below.
The scene unfolded early Thursday during New York's deadliest fire in nearly two decades - a blaze that killed eight children and one adult, part of an extended family led by African immigrants who shared a row house near Yankee Stadium.

The children tossed from the three-story building survived, authorities said. The woman who threw them jumped but survived.

The fire was sparked by an overheated space heater near a mattress in a basement bedroom, then raced up a stairway pushed by air from broken back windows, said Fire Chief Salvatore Cassano. Most of the 22 residents - 17 of them children - were stranded on the upper floors as the blaze raged for two hours.

``I can't recollect a fire where we lost eight children,'' Cassano said.
Neighbor Edward Soto ran toward the fire, then stared in disbelief as an infant was tossed from the building.

``All I see is just a big cloud of white dust, and out of nowhere comes the first baby,'' said Soto, who caught the child while with another neighbor. Moments later, he caught a second child. At least one of the children was not breathing.

Firefighters worked for two hours in freezing predawn temperatures to bring the flames under control. The home had two smoke alarms, but neither had batteries. Police said there was no evidence of a crime.
The dead were found throughout the house, mostly on the upper floors, with babies still in their cribs. The victims included five children from one family, along with a wife and three other children from a second family.
Word of the fire spread grief across two continents, from the Bronx to villages in Mali, a West African country about twice the size of Texas and one of the poorest nations in the world.

``I don't know what I'm going to do,'' said a devastated Mamadou Soumare, a livery cabdriver whose wife, son and 7-month-old twins died in the blaze. ``I love her. I love my wife.''

Soumare was driving through Harlem when he received a frantic cell phone call from his wife, Fatoumata, who relatives said died in the fire. ``She said, `We have a fire,''' Soumare recalled. ``She was screaming.''
Soumare rushed home in his cab, only to helplessly watch as their home turned into a fiery tomb.

Moussa Magassa, an official of the New York chapter of the High Council for Malians Living Abroad, was headed back to the city from a business trip to Mali after receiving the grim news that nearly half of his 11 children were dead, said council representative Bourema Niambele.

``He's the best in our community,'' said Imam Mahamadou Soukouna, a Muslim cleric and family friend. ``It's very, very, very sad what has happened to us today.''

Magassa arrived in New York about 15 years ago, friends said. One neighbor said Magassa and Mamadou Soumare were brothers. Fatoumata Soumare was from the village of Tasauirga and left Mali for the Bronx about six years ago, friends said.

The death toll might have been higher if not for the efforts of Soto and another neighbor, David Todd.

Todd, 40, who lived next door, said one child was already on the ground in the yard when he arrived with Soto outside the burning home. ``Please God, help my children!'' the woman inside screamed while tossing the children out - and then jumping from the window.

Another neighbor, Elaine Martin, said flames were shooting from the building when she arrived, and a shoeless woman in a nightgown stood crying in the street.

``My kids is in there, my kids is in there,'' the woman wailed to Martin.
Neighbor Charles O'Neal, 21, watched as firefighters passed along babies still in their pajamas. Later, O'Neal saw two of the children dead, splayed across white plastic on the ground.

There were reports of 19 injuries, including four firefighters and an emergency medical worker. A 7-year-old girl remained in critical condition, while a pair of 6-year-olds and a 24-year-old were in stable condition.

Part of the problem, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was that residents apparently tried to extinguish the fire themselves.

``Once they were notified, the Fire Department was on the scene in a little more than three minutes,'' the mayor said. ``Sadly, that was not enough time.''

The home did not have a fire escape and was not required to under city building codes. There were no complaints or violations on record against the building, constructed in 1901.

In February, Moussa Magassa applied for a permit to divide the building into three apartments. Such a change would have required a fire escape or other evacuation route, city buildings department spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said.

The dead, according to family members, included Fatoumata Soumare, 42, and three children: a son, Dgibril, and 7-month-old twins, Sisi and Harouma. A fourth child, 7-year-old Hasimy, escaped the carnage, her father said.
The family members provided different name spellings than the authorities did.

Authorities identified the members of the Magassa family as four brothers: Bandiougou, 11, Mahamadou, 8, Abudubucary, 5, and Bilaly, 1; and their sister, 3-year-old Diaba.

Varying accounts had the families' names spelled differently. The fire was New York City's deadliest since the 1990 Happy Land social club blaze in the Bronx that killed 87 people.

[Thomas H. Dietrich]

Sad to say, sometimes children(as well as their parents) ignore the importance of smoke detectors, so batteries come out for other purposes. This is why in our program, in homes that have no hard wired smokes, we install tamper resistant (sealed) 10 year battery smoke detectors.

Don't need grand parents dying because the grand children needed a battery for their gameboy.

tom

[Joseph Hagarty]

Originally Posted by tdietrich1

Sad to say, sometimes children(as well as their parents) ignore the importance of smoke detectors, so batteries come out for other purposes. This is why in our program, in homes that have no hard wired smokes, we install tamper resistant (sealed) 10 year battery smoke detectors.

Don't need grand parents dying because the grand children needed a battery for their gameboy.

tom

I have not seen these....

http://www.energyfederation.org/cons...h/1631_26_2142

Thanks for the info....

[Thomas H. Dietrich]

Since my org is a nonprofit, and the whole accounting system is based around a 'petty cash fund' we were looking at firex recently, about $18.

tom

[Joseph Hagarty]

http://www.alliedsalescompany.com/alarm/4651.html

$11.99

[Ian Gills]

Does any one know of a small smoke alarm? If you put them everywhere you are supposed to they look unsightly. I have one in my hall (outside the bedrooms) and one in the basement. I want to put one in each of the three bedrooms, but a 5.5 inch smoke alarm in each will look crazy.