Bronx Blaze Now Ranks Among the Worst Fires in NYC History

An NYC apartment fire injured 63 people, 32 of them with life-threatening injuries; the mayor called it the city's worst fire disaster in a generation

NBCUniversal Media, LLC

A horrifying apartment fire in the Bronx left 17 dead, including eight children, on Sunday, with dozens more injured.

Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday's blaze was the city's worst fire disaster since the infamous Happy Land arson in 1990, and the initial death toll confirms it will be recorded among the city's deadliest fires ever.

This is a look at some of the worst New York City fires of the last few decades.

2017 Bronx apartment fire

US-DISASTER-FIRE-NEW-YORK
KENA BETANCUR
A NYPD officer walks on the scene of an apartment fire in the Bronx borough of New York City on December 29, 2017. Officials said Friday that the death toll from the fire has reached 12, including four children. / AFP PHOTO / KENA BETANCUR (Photo credit should read KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)

A 58-year-old woman, her 7-month-old granddaughter, a mother and her 2- and 7-year-old daughters were among the 13 people who died when a fast-moving fire caused by a child playing with a stove engulfed their Bronx apartment building in a matter of minutes just days after Christmas in 2017.

Authorities said the flames broke out on the first floor of the building and quickly spread up through the five-story, 25-unit structure. Authorities said Friday that a small child playing with a stove in his first-floor kitchen appears to have sparked the blaze, which was the city's deadliest residential fire in decades.

2007 Highbridge fire

Firefighters tend to victims of three-alarm fire in apartmen
New York Daily News Archive
UNITED STATES - MARCH 08: Firefighters tend to victims of three-alarm fire in apartment blaze at 1022 Woddycreast Ave., near W. 165th St. in High Bridge, the Bronx. The fire killed eight children and seriously injured 14 other people. (Photo by Ken Murray/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

A fire believed to have been caused by a space heater kills 10 people, most of them children, wiping out at least one entire family.

At the time, it was the city's deadliest fire since the Happyland disaster.

1990 Happy Land arson

Happy Land Fire
AP Images
In this 1990 file photo, news crews report on an arson fire at the Happy Land social club in which 87 people perished, in the Bronx borough of New York. March 25, 2015, marks the quarter-century anniversary of what was then the biggest mass murder in modern U.S. history. (AP Photo)

On March 25, 1990, a Cuban refugee named Julio Gonzalez tried to win back the woman who had spurned him.

Gonzalez entered the Happy Land social club in the Bronx, which was humming with people — mostly immigrants — partying and dancing. His former live-in girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, was checking coats, and they had a virulent argument. Gonzalez was thrown out.

In a rage, he returned just after 3 a.m., splashing gasoline on Happy Land's only guest exit and lighting two matches. Then he pulled down the metal front gate.

Within minutes, 87 people were dead.

1976 Puerto Rican Social Club

Firemen carry bodies after Club Puerto Rican fire.
New York Daily News Archive
UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 24: Firemen carry bodies after Club Puerto Rican fire. (Photo by Thomas Monaster/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

25 people are killed in an arson fire at the Puerto Rican Social Club in the Bronx. Authorities later said the fire was set by an angry clubgoer's spouse.

1966 23rd Street Fire

FDNY firemen wait during search for victims of 1966 fire in Manhattan
Newsday LLC
New York, N.Y.: Overview of New York City firemen standing waiting on October 18, 1966 as the search for victims continued in a fire and building collapse on Broadway between 22nd and 23rd Street in Manhattan. The disaster killed 12 firemen, 7 of them from Long Island. (Photo by Marvin Sussman/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

Some 12 FDNY firefighters are killed after a floor collapse while battling a blaze in Manhattan in Oct. 1966. It remained the deadliest day in the FDNY's history until the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The Associated Press / NBC New York
Contact Us