 take two. Welcome to Cone Corner with Canadian. Let's take it. Let's see what's on thinking man's mind today. What happened at the apartment fire in the Bronx recently? That's a great question thinking man. And it's a sad one, but let's investigate. Twin Parks Northwest is a 19 story, 120 unit low income housing apartment building in the Bronx, New York. When it was first built in the 70s, it was cutting edge design, and it was designed to form a community atmosphere for the residents. The details of this story come from the New York Times, the New York Post, and CNN. At 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, January 9, 2022, a five alarms fire started when a space heater ignited flammable materials in a third floor apartment. The dad was asleep, but woke to the sound of the children screams of fire fire. He ran back to their room and told them everyone get out and they did when they were downstairs. He was told that his daughter was still in her bed. So he ran back up when he arrived back at the apartment. It was engulfed in flames and thick smoke. When there's so much smoke and fire, all you can think is if I don't get out of here, I will die. He said I went back for my daughter. The dad said I could only think about getting her out, getting her safe. I burned my face to get her out, and I didn't even feel it until much later. When you push the door all the way to the edge, it didn't close by itself, he said. He was in the apartment with his wife and eight kids when the fire started. It's very sad. I don't even remember the door staying open because all I could think about was getting everybody out. I actually thought later that the door had shut, but the fire department people told me that it had stayed open. Not only was the apartment door left open, so was a door into the stair on the 15th floor. This open door provided oxygen to the stair tower. Residents fleeing the third floor opened the stair door and within minutes smoke rushed up the stairs all the way to the top 19th floor, making the stairs untenable for egress. The fire department was on the scene in just three minutes, 200 firefighters and all the apparatus. 17 were killed and more than 60 were reported as injured. The fire itself was contained to the third floor apartment. Mayor Eric Adams said it was the smoke that took these lives, not the fire itself. Victims were found on every floor in stairways. I went to the stairs. I opened the door. It just blew me back to the house, she said. If I'd stayed there for another three seconds, I would have been gone too. The firefighter said that the fire was contained at the third floor apartment. Apartment doors were equipped with self closing devices per code. They had many complaints through the years that they didn't function properly. I firmly believe that if one door, if that one door to the apartment was shut like it was supposed to be, there wouldn't have been any fatalities in this fire. Smoke is the leading cause of death in most building fires. And so having reliable closing devices is so critical. But not only that maintaining them, going in and adjusting, making sure that they do their job to close and then latch the door. We did not learn a new lesson here. It's a story that's repeated itself for over 100 years. But what can we do? This most recent fire in the Bronx highlights the ongoing battle to not just educate, but assist and keep our voices loud to anyone who will listen. We must continue to keep the importance of life safety codes in the forefront of everyone's mind. This includes adoption and enforcement of the existing codes that we have. Moreover, it's proof that hardware isn't a set it and forget it kind of proposition. Fire doors have a big responsibility to be closed and latched at the time of a fire in a setting like this, where you have multiple families and a lot of people using the building. And the maintenance department really needs a weekly duty to check all the fire doors in the building to make sure they're in good working order. It's a heavy lift, but that's part of the ongoing maintenance that is required. For more information and continuing education opportunities, please visit Osa Abloy Academy by clicking on the link in the comments below. Please click like and subscribe to this channel. You can follow me on Twitter at our consultant and or connect with me on LinkedIn for updates. You can email me at Catherine.Flower at OsaAbloy.com. Thanks for joining me in the code corner today. My name is Katie Flower and my goal is to help you achieve safe security in the built environment.