Man dies, two FDNY firefighters injured after e-bike battery catches fire in Bronx apartment

A 34-year-old antheral died and 2 firefighters were injured aft an e-bike artillery caught fire wrong his Bronx apartment.

It was the city’s 5th fatality this twelvemonth caused by lithium-ion batteries sparking a blaze, the FDNY said.

The occurrence wrong the third-floor flat connected Beaumont Ave. adjacent Grote St. successful Belmont erupted astatine astir 11:50 p.m. Thursday.

Responding firefighters recovered the victim, believed to beryllium a tenant of the apartment, unconscious and rushed him to St. Barnabas Hospital, wherever helium aboriginal died.

Another gathering tenant suffered superior injuries and was besides taken to St. Barnabas Hospital. Two responding firefighters suffered insignificant injuries and were treated astatine the hospital, an FDNY spokesperson said.

The occurrence was enactment retired wrong 40 minutes. More than 60 firefighters and metropolis exigency aesculapian technicians were called to grip the flames.

Firefighters recovered an e-bike wrong the flat wherever the blaze broke out. FDNY officials person determined that the bike’s lithium-ion artillery caused the fire.

A HAZMAT squad was dispatched to retrieve the lithium-ion artillery and forestall it from reigniting, officials said.

Since 2022, lithium-ion batteries person go the starring origin of occurrence deaths successful New York City, though the fig of deaths person dropped dramatically this year, FDNY officials said. At this clip past twelvemonth 12 radical crossed the metropolis had died successful e-bike fires.

Most recently, 69-year-old Georgiy Kizyun died erstwhile helium was trapped successful his Brighton Beach, Brooklyn flat connected Oct. 16 by a occurrence sparked by an exploding e-bike battery.

FDNY Chief Fire Marshal Dan Flynn said past that Kizyun was incapable to flight aft a lithium ion artillery stored successful his flat blew up.

“The instrumentality was blocking the egress of the idiosyncratic that succumbed to their injuries,” Flynn told reporters extracurricular the Brooklyn building. “Do not enactment these devices betwixt you and the beforehand door. You person to person a plan. Make definite you tin get out.”