A fire in a Bronx building that killed at least 12 people Thursday night may have been started by a 3-year boy who was playing with a stove in a first-floor apartment, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.
The fire broke out just before 7 p.m. in the five-story building in the Belmont neighborhood.
More than 150 firefighters worked amid sub-freezing temperatures to extinguish the blaze, which officials said was the deadliest in the city since a 1990 fire that killed 87 people.
Among the dead are three children and a 19-year-old.
“This is the worst fire tragedy we’ve seen in this city in at least a quarter century,” de Blasio said Thursday night at a news conference near the scene.