Overview
- FDNY leaders staged live demonstrations Thursday showing how an open apartment door lets smoke and flames race through a building, urging residents to close doors if a fire breaks out.
- Investigators said the Inwood blaze at 207 Dyckman Street on Monday killed three after an open door let fire and smoke surge up the building’s only stairwell.
- Housing officials told CBS News the Inwood apartment had three open violations for self-closing doors and the building has been in an HPD monitoring program for high-violation properties since January.
- In a separate case on East 187th Street in the Bronx last month, two people died, and FDNY sources said a resident had propped a door open to help a cat escape.
- City law requires self-closing doors in multi-unit buildings, HPD logged more than 72,000 such violations in Fiscal Year 2025 and spent $6.7 million on repairs, and officials urged 311 reports for doors that fail to close on their own.