NEW: Firefighters knew an open door was fueling the Bronx inferno. They just had to find it
just before 11 am on Sunday, they were met by impenetrable smoke when they stepped from the stairwell into the main hallway on the third floor of the 19-story building.They knew from too many other fires that this likely meant the door to one of the apartments was open, feeding the flames with oxygen and allowing smoke to fill whatever parts of the building it can reach.The most immediate problem was to find their way in absolute blackness.
When the fire was out, the firefighters wanted the door open to allow smoke to escape from the hallway and out the apartment windows. They moved to accelerate the venting by knocking down some of the hallway walls, which in a city-funded housing project would have been cinder blocks but in this privately owned and federally subsidized building were two layers of sheetrock.
Down below, one emergency vehicle after another was arriving. She now could see smoke was coming into the apartment even though the door and windows were. She opened the door slightly and gazed out.Is this real“I need help! I need help!” she remembered calling out.“He said, ‘Mommy, how are we going to be okay?” she remembered.
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