The latest on the NYC Bronx apartment fire

Medical examiners officials revised the death toll from the fatal Bronx fire to 17 dead – including nine adults and eight children, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Monday.

Adams was speaking at a news conference Monday with New York politicians including Lt Governor Brian Benjamin and US Rep Ritchie Torres. The Counsel General of the Dominican Republic was also present, he said. 

“This is a global tragedy because the Bronx in NYC is representative of the ethnicities and cultures across the globe, and so everyone is feeling the pain of what we are experiencing," the mayor said.

The mayor had originally said Sunday that fire had killed at least 19 people, including nine children.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is holding a news conference now on Sunday’s deadly Bronx fire.

What we know so far: A malfunctioning electric space heater in a bedroom was the source of the apartment fire that killed 19 people, New York City's fire commissioner said, in a tragedy that marks one of the city's worst fires in modern history and raises major safety questions.

Nine children were killed, while 63 people were injured by "severe smoke inhalation," with 32 sent to five borough hospitals in life-threatening condition, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Sunday at a news conference.

Now, the building's fire alarms and a series of open doors are on the radar of investigators and officials probing the second major deadly fire in a week in the Northeast.

CNN's Susannah Cullinane contributed reporting to this post.

The Red Cross has provided 22 families emergency housing in the wake of the deadly Bronx apartment fire, a total of 56 adults and 25 children, the group said in a statement.

A local reception center at a nearby school served 275 meals and snacks, they said

The Red Cross is standing up a New York City service center at Monroe College in the Bronx from 12 to 8 p.m. ET where caseworkers will help register families for assistance and where mental health volunteers will be available to provide emotional support.

Read the organization's full statement below:

Bronx fire survivor, Karen Dejesus, who says she lived in an apartment on the same floor of the fire, described what she saw Sunday night.

"I can see the flames, I can see the smoke and everything, you know, coming into my apartment," said Dejesus. "You're being trapped somewhere. As you see, we have no fire escapes, obviously the building was not fire-proof like we thought it was."

Dejesus described a scene in which firefighters broke down her door to come in and rescue her, her granddaughter and her son. They had to climb out of a window to escape the flames.

Dejesus shared similar sentiments regarding hearing the fire alarms as other survivors.

"So many of us were used to hearing that fire alarm go off so it was like second nature to us," she said. "Not until I actually seen the smoke coming in the door, I realized it was a real fire and I heard people yelling help, help, help."

Dejesus said that the Red Cross has helped place her family in terms of housing.

At least 19 people, including nine children, are dead and dozens are injured after a major fire impacted a Bronx apartment building Sunday. The blaze was caused by a malfunctioning electric space heater, New York's fire commissioner said.

A survivor of the Bronx apartment fire described the harrowing and frightening moments she and her husband realized their home was on fire.

Daisy Mitchell, a tenth-floor resident who had just moved into the building recently, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar she recalled her husband smelling smoke. “The alarm was going off for a while so I didn’t pay it no mind,” she said.

“I went to the stairs, I opened the door, it just blew me back [to] the house,” she added.

She recalled banging on the door, saying, “Let me in the house, I can’t see, I’m blind, I can’t see, I can’t see.”

“If I’d stayed out there for another three seconds, I would have been gone too,” Mitchell said.

“I never seen nothing like this before,” she added.

“It’s really devastating to have to see all the stretchers and the people who died, they kept coming out on the stretchers, the puppies lying in the exit, the dogs and all this, I mean … it’s really sad.”

Mitchell said she doesn’t know people in the building but she added, “I give all my love and my blessings go out to the families.”

Watch:

The investigation into the deadly Bronx fire will include whether the door to the apartment where the fire started had a malfunction and whether the buildings alarm system operated appropriately, New York City Mayor Eric Adams told CNN on Monday.

As several people remain in critical condition in various hospitals, there may be more loss of life, the mayor added.

“We were told and instructed that there were self-closing doors, we just need to look at the door to that apartment to see if there was any form of malfunction,” Adams told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on "New Day." “We can’t make a determination until the fire marshals conduct a thorough investigation.”

“We have a law here in NYC that requires doors to close automatically,” he continued. “We also want to double down on that PSA that I recall as a child .. close the doors."

The city will partner with the New York City Fire Department and the city's schools chancellor to get the message out, he said. “Such a powerful message could save so many lives," the mayor added.

At a news conference Sunday, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the door to the apartment did not close when its residents left. "The smoke spread throughout the building, thus, the tremendous loss of life and other people fighting for their lives right now in hospitals all over the Bronx," he said. 

Nigro said in addition to the door to the apartment where the fire originated being left open, at least one door was open from the stairwell to one of the upper floors.

Part of the investigation also will include why, as one resident put it, smoke alarms went off frequently, Adams said.

“Were going to look at that system and ensure that the alarms system didn’t repeatedly malfunction, and this is a wakeup call for all of our buildings. Do proper testing and ensure that complaints of repeated smoke alarms going off without any real smoke or fire? We need to make sure these systems operate because they save lives," the mayor said.

When asked if the building was up to fire code, Adams said, “I believe that based on the preliminary report that it was up to the current standard.”

“These buildings were built prior to many of our new fire codes that were put in place, and once we have the report from the fire marshal we will be able to make a thorough evaluation on what needs to be done and how we move forward," the mayor said.

Later when pressed again whether it was up to new codes given the age of the building, he explained that “it depends on what the actual code is,” including how the ventilation systems are laid out.

There’s a series of corrections that can often be made immediately, he said, but then separately buildings can also receive waivers. Adams said all this information will come out in the fire marshal's report.

A resident had complained of a lack of lighting in the stairwells on CNN's "New Day" earlier Monday, and Adams said the investigation will also look into whether there was proper lighting.

A major fire in a residential apartment building in the Bronx in New York City on Sunday left 19 people dead, including 9 children, in what Mayor Eric Adams described as one of the worst fires the city has experienced in modern times.

The blaze sent 32 people to hospitals with life-threatening conditions, Daniel Nigro, commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, said earlier Sunday. A total of 63 people were injured.

A "malfunctioning electric space heater" was the source of the fire, Nigro said during a press conference. The heater was in the bedroom of an apartment, and the fire consumed the room and then the entire apartment, he said.

The apartment door was left open and smoke spread throughout the building when the residents left their unit, Nigro said.

About 200 members of the New York City Fire Department responded to the fire at the 19-story building at 333 East 181st Street. The fire began a little before 11 a.m. in a duplex apartment on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building, the FDNY said.

Firefighters were met by "very heavy smoke, very heavy fire" in the hallways.

Victims were found in stairways on every floor of the building, many in cardiac arrest, in what Nigro said could be an unprecedented loss of life. The injuries were predominantly from smoke inhalation, he said.

Firefighters kept attempting to save people from the building despite running out of air tank, Nigro said. Some of the residents who were trying to leave the building could not "escape because of the volume of smoke."

The FDNY posted several images of the scene showing ladders extending into apartment windows as well as a number of broken windows.

"This is going to be one of the worst fires that we have witnessed during modern times here in the city of New York," Adams said.

Read more about the fire here.