7-year-old and teen die in Queens blaze caused by e-bike battery
A 7-year-old and a teenager died Monday in a Queens house fire that forced people to leap out of windows for their lives — and was sparked by the battery on an e-bike, officials said.
The inferno broke out just after 2 p.m. inside the vestibule on the first floor of the two-story building at 25-71 46th St. in Astoria and quickly spread up the stairs, where a father and his five children were, fire officials said.
Four of the residents were able to jump from the windows to safety — but two others, ages 7 and 19, died in the fire, according to officials. Their mother was not home at the time.
FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens called the incident a “terrible tragedy.
“We got here very quickly, and if this was not an e-bike fire, most likely, we would have been able to put this fire out without incident,” Hodges said at the scene. “But the way these fires occur, it’s like an explosion of fire, and these occupants had very, very little chance of escaping.”
It was believed the family was using a charger that was not compatible with the battery.
A neighbor told ABC he helped catch three of the kids and father as they leaped from the second-story window.
“I heard someone screaming, ‘My house! My house! Help help!’ ” Theodore Alafogiannis said.
“Two of my neighbors were already outside,” he said, adding, “They said, ‘There’s two kids and a man in the back, we gotta get them out.’
“So we cornered them as they jumped out the house.”
The fire marks the 59th city blaze caused by lithium-ion batteries so far this year, with five deaths linked to the power sources since the start of January, according to fire officials. In all of last year, six people died in similar fires.
“The horrific fire that resulted in the death of two young people Monday afternoon is a stark reminder of the importance of an issue the FDNY has been talking about for some time: education and awareness around lithium-ion batteries,” said Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh in a statement.
“We are also calling on our federal, state and local partners to move quickly on regulations that will help ensure tragedies like today’s fire are prevented.”
