TESTIMONY OF BRONX BOROUGH PRESIDENT RUBEN DIAZ JR. ON INTROS. # 608, 609 AND 610.

  My office, in partnership with City Council Member Ritchie Torres and City Council Member Chaim Deutsch, has introduced a package of new legislation designed to prevent catastrophic fires in the wake of December’s tragic fire in the Belmont section of The Bronx, which saw 13 lives lost.

Today we have introduced three bills that would improve fire safety and education, and potentially save lives:

Intro 610 would require owners of buildings with three or more units to provide and properly install approved stove safety devices on all stoves in units where a child or children 10 years or younger reside;

Intro 609 would require the Fire Department, in coordination with the Education Department, to implement a comprehensive plan for educating children and parents about fire safety and prevention

Intro 608 would require landlords to post a notice indicating that those escaping a fire should close all doors behind them.

These bills will help prevent future tragedies, keep our first responders out of harm’s way, and save lives.

On Thursday, December 28, 2017, a fire broke out at 2363 Prospect Avenue in Belmont. It led to 13 deaths, making it the deadliest fire New York City had seen in the past 25 years--since an inferno at the Happy Land social club killed 87 people in 1990. The five-story Belmont building was destroyed.

Investigators found that the fire was started by a three-year-old child playing with the stove in his apartment, and quickly grew out of control.

Just as we require window guards in apartments with young children, we should also require that stoves be made safer through the installation of approved safety devices. This tragic fire could have been prevented, had this young child been unable to tamper with the knob of the stove in his apartment. The flames spread quickly, in part because, as the boy's mother fled the burning apartment she left the door open.

For a small investment of just a few dollars per stove, we can prevent children from easily tampering with a knob and accidentally causing a fire. We can also educate families to close the door behind them if they are escaping a fire, in order to prevent the fire from spreading and to protect their neighbors. Additionally, we can do more to educate children and families on fire safety and prevention.

This is critical legislation that will protect our families, our neighbors, and keep our fire department and other first responders safe in an emergency.

One of the 13 people who died in this fire was PFC. Emmanuel Mensah. PFC. Mensah lived in this building, and was found dead in an apartment that was not his own. He was trying to rescue his neighbors, and he succumbed to the blaze.

There are many ways we can honor his memory, and preventing future tragedies is one of them. I thank Council Members Torres and Deutsch for their partnership on this legislation and for introducing these bills at my behest, and I look forward to seeing these three laws, which directly address the causes of deadly disasters like this, passed.