Fires killed 88 people in New York City in 2018, the most in more than a decade, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said on Thursday.
Testifying before the City Council’s Fire and Emergency Management Committee about the FDNY’s new $2.1 billion budget, Nigro called the surge from 73 deaths in 2017 “a concerning development.”
The last time more people died in fires was in 2007, when 95 lives were lost.
It was only a couple of years ago — 2016 — that the fire death toll was 48, the lowest in 100 years.
Nigro didn’t offer an explanation for the second sharp increase in as many years, but officials later pointed out that there were no working smoke alarms in more than two-thirds of the fatal fires caused by faulty electrical equipment and smoking — the leading causes of all the blazes
No comments yet.