Fire experts said the design of a nearly 50-year-old Bronx building and its older fire safety features likely contributed to the a blaze caused by a faulty space heater turning the complex into a smoke-filled chimney on Sunday morning.
The inferno erupted in a third-floor duplex in the 19-floor Twin Parks North West building, which was built in 1973.
Andrew Ansbro, president of the FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association Union, said the ageing building was poorly equipped to deal with a fire.
'It was at a building that was built under federal guidelines way back when, so it’s not up to New York City fire codes,' he told the New York Daily News.
It has no fire escapes and its stairwells, which are meant to be used as emergency exits, quickly filled with smoke as the fire burned.
Fire officials also cited the system of 'scissor stairs' inside the complex as a design that makes it more difficult to feed a hose through in the building.
Twin Parks North West is equipped with self-sealing fire doors, but it is unclear how many of them were open. Investigators said at least one, located on the 15th floor of the high-rise, was not shut, allowing smoke to spread.
Per city law, Unit 3N - where the fire originated - had a self-closing door, however, New York City Mayor Eric Adams confirmed Monday the door failed to completely shut, likely the result of a 'maintenance issue'.
'We’re looking to determine if there was some form of malfunctioning of the door,' Adams told CNN Monday morning.
'We have a law here that requires doors to close automatically. We are looking at [that] through the investigation with the fire marshals, who will be extremely thorough with the investigation.'
Fire investigators tested most of the doors in the complex on Sunday and found a handful of other units had doors that did not close automatically, as designed, a fire official confirmed to the New York Times.
The complex also has a sprinkler system, but only in its laundry and contractor room. Large, new apartment buildings in the city are required to have sprinkler systems and interior doors that swing shut automatically to contain smoke and deprive fires of oxygen, however those rules don't apply to older buildings.
Additionally, many residents ignored the fire alarms when they went off on Sunday because they sound so frequently as false alarms.
'First we heard the fire alarm go off. Numerous times,' said Michael Joseph, 32, who lived on the sixth floor with his uncle. But we didn't think nothing of it, because normally people in the building, they smoke and tend to set it off. So we thought it was probably just people playing.'
Fire experts said the design of a nearly 50-year-old Bronx building and its older fire safety features likely contributed to the a blaze caused by a faulty space heater turning the complex into a smoke-filled chimney on Sunday morning
The fire at Twin Parks North West complex in the Bronx broke out in Unit 3N, where the nine-person Wague family resided. Their residence is pictured Monday, covered in ash and debris
The family's apartment is seen completely destroyed. Father Mamadou Wague said the blaze left his eight-year-old daughter trapped in her bedroom on a mattress engulfed in flames. He pulled his daughter out of the flames and managed to escape
The blaze in unit 3N was caused by a faulty space heater, fire marshals determined Monday
The entire unit was damaged by the blaze
The owners of the Bronx building insist smoke detectors were working on Sunday when the flames tore through the building, despite fire bosses claiming the building isn't up to code, and include a member of the new mayor's housing transition team.
Eight children and nine adults died after the fire started at 333 E. 181st St. near Tiebout Ave in the Bronx shortly before 11am, tearing through a duplex apartment then spreading to other units in the affordable housing complex.
It is believed to have been started by a space heater that was running uninterrupted for days inside 3N, an apartment where Mamadou Wague and his eight children lived. They all survived but another eight kids from inside the building, and nine adults, died.
At a press conference on Monday, officials said the fire spread after the apartment's entry door failed to automatically close, as it should have, when Wague and his family fled.
'The fire was contained to the hallway just outside this two-story apartment, but the smoke travelled throughout the building and the smoke is what caused the deaths and the serious injuries,' Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro explained.
Mayor Adams, echoing Nigro's claim, vowed to 'double down' on the instructing residents to close doors in the event of a fire. However, he reiterated that city leaders do not blame the family for the catastrophe.
'What we don’t want to do is just to add more trauma on a family that was simply trying to escape, a very dangerous and a very frightening experience,' Adams said.
Although none of the victims' identities have been confirmed by the coroner's office, police sources told the New York Post the youngest victims include a four-year-old, two five-year-old girls, a six-year-old boy, a pair of 11-year-old girls and a 12-year-old boy. Several victims appear to be from the same families.
Additionally, many residents remain missing including Dorel Anderson, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, and her boyfriend, Ramel Thompson.
Thompson's parents, who also live in the building and successfully escaped, claim the couple was in the apartment during the blaze but haven't yet been found.
Anderson's mother, Karen Benjamin, echoed the Thompson family's concerns, telling the Post: 'We were given no information. We can’t find her.'
New York City's worst fire disaster in more than 30 years that broke out on the second and third floor of a building at 333 East 181st Street in the Bronx has killed eight children and nine adults (pictured, people jump to safety from the burning building)
FDNY commissioner Daniel Nigro said that 'very heavy' fire and smoke 'extended the entire height of the building' and confirmed that a space heater caused the blaze. Firefighters were pictured rescuing residents from the blaze early on Sunday
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said a malfunction with a self-closing door allowed smoke from a Bronx apartment fire started by a faulty space heater to spread throughout the building, killing eight children and nine adults
The building is home to many immigrants from west Africa, especially Gambia, and the Dominican Republic. It has a mix of private renters and those whose rent is being paid by the state.
Wague recalled how his kids alerted him to the blaze: 'One of the kids said, ‘"Oh, Daddy! Daddy! There’s a fire!”'
'I get up and there’s smoke in the kids’ rooms.'
He then found
