The Sunday morning fire in a Hell's Kitchen apartment building that killed one man and seriously injured his husband was deemed accidental by the Fire Department. Apparently the cause of the three-alarm blaze was a power strip overloaded with electrical appliances in another resident's apartment.
The fire start after 11 a.m. at The Strand, a condominium at 500 West 43rd Street, and it took about two hours to control. FDNY Chief of Operations James Esposito said, "We believe we have a power pack, extension cord with multiple outlets involved. A Christmas tree was part of the contents of the fire apartment." Esposito also said, "My understanding is that when the occupant returned from shopping and he went to enter his apartment, he opened the door, it was full of smoke, he left, and the door remained in an open position... The fire received all the oxygen it needed to become a free-burning fire."
A source told the Post, "[It was] probably one of those cheap dollar-store extension chords that overloaded the outlet. The fact that there was stuff around it, like the tree, to catch fire, and and it was up against a window so it vented out, made it [spread]. All indications point to that."
Daniel McClung, 27, a 38th floor resident, and his husband, Michael Cohen, 32, tried to escape their 38th floor apartment, but were severely overcome by smoke around the 31st and 32nd floors. McClung died, while Cohen is in stable condition; they were just married last year. Esposito said that if they stayed in their apartment, "They would have survived, absolutely... It’s not the fire in these fire-proof multiple dwellings that will kill you. It’s the smoke that will kill you.’’
Here's a residential apartment fire safety pamphlet (PDF) from the FDNY.
