Father rescues daughter from burning bed in Bronx apartment where inferno broke out

An immigrant father has revealed he leaped through flames to save his eight children from their blazing apartment after a faulty space heater set it alight and tore through the Bronx block killing eight children and nine adults.  

The death toll, originally reported as 19, was downgraded to 17 on Monday. Addressing the revised death toll, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said patients had been taken to seven different hospitals in the city, which led to ‘a bit of a double count’. 

Fire experts, attributing smoke to the fatalities, believe a self-closing door in the Twin Parks North West complex may have malfunctioned, allowing the smoke to spread through the building.

‘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,’ Nigro said during a press conference Monday. 

Exclusive photographs taken by DailyMail.com reveal what remains of the family unit after the fire engulfed their duplex apartment at 333 East 181st Street, at 11am on Sunday.     

Mamadou Wague, who lived in Unit 3N with his wife and children, recalled how he was woken by his children screaming ‘fire’ and then found his eight-year-old daughter, Nafisha, screaming and trapped on a burning mattress in her bedroom.

‘I just grab her and run,’ the west African immigrant told the New York Times. ‘I didn’t think about anything except getting her out.’ 

Wague, 47, pulled his daughter from the burning bed, suffering burns to his lips and nose, and escaped the unit with his family. Nafisha sustained burns but is alive.

Fire Marshals ruled the fire ‘accidental,’ noting that it was caused by a malfunctioning space heater and that a ‘smoke alarm was present and operational’. 

A New York City official, who spoke to the newspaper on the condition of anonymity, revealed fire marshals suspect the space heater had been running uninterrupted for multiple days. According to a list of resident maintenance requests shared online, building received at least four complaints last year of units being without heat. It is unclear if Unit 3N was having an issue with heat. 

Officials believe the fire spread so rapidly because Mr Wague left his apartment door open as he fled for his life with his kids. 

Mayor Eric Adams said there may have been a ‘maintenance issue,’ as it was supposed to close automatically. He told CNN: ‘The doors in the building did have self-closing mechanisms. We are just looking at that specific door.’

However, Andrew Ansbro, president of the FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association Union, said the 49-year-old 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 stairwells meant to be used as emergency exits quickly filled with smoke, along with floors where stairwell doors were left open.   

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.

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.’  

The apartment complex was purchased for $24,675,000 in 2020 by a group of investors, including Camber Property Group. Rick Gropper, a co-founder and principal at Camber, was one of the nearly 800 individuals named last month to the new mayor’s transition team.    

Pope Francis offered his condolences Monday to the victims of the ‘devastating’ apartment fire. In a telegram sent to New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan he offered ‘heartfelt condolences and the assurance of his spiritual closeness’ to those affected by the blaze. 

‘I get up and there’s smoke in the kids’ rooms.’

Smoke had filled the now ash-covered unit. 

‘It was dark,’ his son, Hame Wague, 16, told the newspaper. ‘We were all coughing.’

Although his entire family survived the blaze, the tragedy left Wague stricken with grief.

‘I don’t want anybody life — I don’t want to hear anybody dead in this fire, that’s what I worry about,’ he told ABC 7 shortly after his rescue.    

Mayor Adams, speaking Monday, vowed to ‘double down’ on encouraging residents to close doors in the event of a fire. However, he reiterated that city leaders do not place blame on the Wague 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,’ the mayor said during a press briefing. 

The five-alarm blaze is New York City’s deadliest in three decades. President Joe Biden, speaking with Mayor Adams Monday, offered his ‘heartfelt condolences and support’ to the victims, city leaders and residents. Biden told the mayor any resources the city needs will be made available.

Although the flames only damaged a small portion of the building, smoke escaped through the Wague family’s open door and flooded the stairwells – the only method of escape as the building was too tall for fire escapes – with ash.  

Some people could not escape because of the volume of smoke, while others became incapacitated as they tried to flee. Several residents said the fire alarms in the building are always going off so they ignored them.

While there have not been any major building violations or complaints listed against the building, according to city building records, however it was reportedly not up to code.

Public records show the building has open violations for cockroach and mouse infestations, lead paint and water leaks, however no structural violations were listed. 

The New York Post reported there were more than two dozen violations and complaints at the building since 2013 – despite $25 million in state loans for repairs. 

The Twin Parks North West complex is classified as a D1 building, according to Street Easy. The classification designates the complex as an elevator apartment building that is semi-fireproof and without stores. 

D1 buildings can be found in all five boroughs of New York City and account for about 29 percent of complexes in the Bronx, Property Shark reported. 

Investigators determined a malfunctioning electric space heater started the fire in the 19-story building, leaving victims on ‘every floor.’ 

Eight children were among at least 17 people killed and 63 injured in Sunday’s inferno. Dozens of residents were hospitalized, several in critical condition, and doctors were continuing efforts to save victims live on Monday.

The mayor said it’s likely the death toll could rise.

‘We pray to God that they’ll be able to pull through,’ Mayor Adams said during a CNN interview Monday morning.

At least 200 firefighters responded to the scene, some arriving within minutes of the initial call for help. As they entered the building, the first responders were met with flames in the hallway. 

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said an investigation was underway to determine how the fire spread and whether anything could have been done to prevent or contain the blaze. 

Adams said it appears the smoke spread due to a door that was supposed to automatically close being open.

‘There may have been a maintenance issue with this door. And that is going to be part of the .. ongoing investigation,’ Adams said on Good Morning America.  

The mayor said the fire crews continued rescue measures even after running out of oxygen.

‘Their oxygen tanks were empty and they still pushed through the smoke,’ he explained, noting that  icy conditions made it difficult for firefighters to put out the blaze.

Jay Jimenez, who lives in the building next door, said he went into the building to help rescue trapped residents. He said he helped ‘a lot’ of people make it to safety, but also recalled the horrifying moments he carried deceased victims out of the building.

‘I was just focused on the mission,’ Jimenez, 35, told DailyMail.com on Monday. He said he helped the fire department as they brought victims to the lobby: ‘I pulled them out, while they bring them through the stairs and out the front lobby and I just took them by the knees and brought them all the way outside.’ 

He added: ‘I couldn’t sleep last night – I haven’t slept. I feel sad. I got kids. I saw a three-year-old completely dead and that’s in my mind. I am not the same. It’s really sad.’  

Jimenez also applauded the ‘hero’ first responders who risked their lives to help the trapped residents.

‘The impact of this fire is going to really bring a level of pain and despair in this city,’ Mayor Adams said during a press conference early on Sunday, shortly after the blaze was extinguished. 

‘The numbers are horrific. We have over 32 people who are life-threatening at this time. This is going to be one of the worst fires we have witnessed in the City of New York in modern times.’ 

Sunday’s blaze came just days after a Philadelphia house fire killed 12 people, including eight children.

That was the deadliest fire at a U.S. residential apartment building since 2017, when 13 people died in an apartment in the Bronx, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association.

That fire started after a three-year-old boy was playing with stove burners.

The deadliest fire prior to that was in 1989 when a Tennessee apartment building fire claimed the lives of 16 people.