At least 19 people, including nine children, have been killed in an apartment fire in New York City, in what the city’s fire commissioner called one of the worst blazes in recent memory
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
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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
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
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
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
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.
