New York Metropolis officers have praised the efforts of firefighters as they tried to rescue folks from a serious hearth within the Bronx space of the town on Sunday—regardless of working out of oxygen.

Chatting with reporters on Sunday concerning the blaze which left 19 folks lifeless, together with 9 youngsters, Mayor Eric Adams thanked firefighters for his or her efforts responding to the fireplace on the house constructing on 333 E 181st Avenue.

"Their oxygen tanks have been empty, they usually nonetheless pushed by the smoke," Adams mentioned.

"You'll be able to't do that in the event you do not feel hooked up to the town and this neighborhood, and I actually need to thank them for placing their lives within the line to save lots of lives," he added.

Elsewhere through the convention, New York Governor Kathy Hochul additionally thanked these went into the constructing "not realizing their very own destiny" to save lots of folks.

"That is why I am so proud to be the Governor of a state like this. You can not preserve us down ever. We're united collectively," Hochul mentioned. "And will God bless the people who're struggling and the souls of these we misplaced, significantly the kids."

Greater than 60 folks have been additionally injured through the blaze, with most of the residents contained in the constructing a part of Muslim and Gambian communities.

The fireplace is believed to have damaged out attributable to a defective electrical house heater.

In keeping with New York Metropolis Hearth Division Commissioner Daniel Nigro, the door to the house the place the fireplace began was left open, which allowed smoke to unfold to each ground on the 120-unit constructing.

"Members discovered victims on each ground in stairwells and have been taking them out in cardiac and respiratory arrest," Nigro mentioned at an earlier briefing.

Luis Rosa, a kind of who lives within the constructing on the thirteenth ground, mentioned the smoke was so thick that he could not see down the hallway.

"So I mentioned, OK, we won't run down the steps as a result of if we run down the steps, we'll find yourself suffocating," he instructed the Related Press. "All we might do was wait."

Mayor Adams described the fireplace as "one of many worst fires we've got witnessed right here in fashionable instances" in New York.

The fireplace is the deadliest to happen within the metropolis since 1990, when 87 folks died in an arson assault on the Glad Land social membership within the Bronx.

In a press release, the Bronx Park Part III Preservation LLC, the identify of the three way partnership that owns the constructing, mentioned: "We're devastated by the unimaginable lack of life attributable to this profound tragedy.

"We're cooperating absolutely with the Hearth Division and different metropolis businesses as they examine its trigger, and we're doing all we are able to to help our residents. Our ideas are with the households and mates of those that misplaced their lives or have been injured, and we're right here to help them as we get well from this horrific hearth."

The FDNY has been contacted for an replace.

bronx fire
Firefighters work outdoors an house constructing after a lethal hearth within the Bronx, on January 9, 2022, in New York. A minimum of 19 folks have died and dozens are injured after a hearth tore by a high-rise house constructing within the New York borough of the Bronx.ED JONES/AFP/Getty Photographs