Lithium ion battery caused fatal fire in New York City apartment building, officials say

NEW YORK — A lithium-ion battery caused a fire that killed one person and injured 17 others at a New York City apartment building, fire officials said Saturday.

Friday’s two-alarm fire started just after 2 p.m. on the third floor of a six-story building in Harlem. Video from the New York Police Department shows firefighters being lowered from the roof with ropes to rescue people trapped on the upper floors of the building.

“Our members attach themselves to a rope and then another member gets on the rope and goes off the side of the building, goes to the window and grabs the person,” John Hodgens, FDNY chief of operations, explained Friday out at a press conference. “This happened three times in this fire.”

The city has seen hundreds of fires in recent years linked to the lithium-ion batteries that power electric bicycles and scooters. The fire brigade has repeatedly issued warnings and safety tips.

Hodgens said the door to the burning apartment was left open, amplifying the fire and hampering efforts to extinguish it.

“If you could do that, imagine flames coming out of the door and blocking the stairwell,” he said. “Normally we go straight to the floor above the fire, but we couldn’t even get past those flames.”