“Private Emmanuel Mensah was a first generation immigrant, a soldier, and a New Yorker. He gave his life rescuing his neighbors in the Bronx fire. His heroism exemplifies the best of our city. Rest in peace”
New York City suffered its deadliest fire in almost 25 years on December 28th when 12 people were killed in a fire in an apartment building in the Bronx. Among those killed in the fire was Army National Guard Private First Class Emmanuel Mensah, a 28-year-old native of Ghana who had just enlisted in the Army.
PFC Mensah had recently completed Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training as a wheeled vehicle mechanic and was home for the holidays when the fire broke out.
The Bronx fire claimed the lives of 12 people, including Mensah and four children, on one of the coldest nights of the year and is the deadliest fire in New York City since the Happy Land Nightclub fire in 1990 that killed 87 people, also in the Bronx.
He is credited with saving at least four lives after returning to the building three separate times.
The fire is suspected to have started around 7 p.m. after a 3-year-old was playing with gas burners on a stove while the child’s mother was in the shower. When the mother saw the fire, she grabbed her children, and rushed out of the building, leaving her apartment door open. This mistake proved to be costly as it allowed the fire to escape the apartment and follow the oxygen it needed to grow. It moved into the hallway and up the stairs. Smoke and fire rushed upwards and quite rapidly spread throughout the building.
“The fire quickly spread up the stairs. The stairway acted like a chimney. It took the fire so quickly upstairs that people had very little time to react. They couldn’t get back down the stairs. Of those that tried, a few of them perished. Others were helped out onto the fire escapes, taken down by our members,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a statement.
Firefighters are taught to control doors and routinely teach this practice to civilians; always close doors behind you when evacuating and isolate the fire.
Known as “flow path,” fires move from areas of high pressure to low pressure, such as through open doors and windows. Firefighters are taught to control doors and routinely teach this practice to civilians; always close doors behind you when evacuating and isolate the fire.
About 160 FDNY firefighters battled the blaze in cold and difficult conditions. They faced a large volume of fire and freezing water sources, a terrible combination. The first arriving engine on the scene was delayed in getting water on the fire, most likely due to water freezing in the hydrant. The fire was finally under control three hours later, by 10 p.m.
“It seems like a horrible, tragic accident,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in an interview with WNYC radio.
“Private Emmanuel Mensah was a first generation immigrant, a soldier, and a New Yorker. He gave his life rescuing his neighbors in the Bronx fire. His heroism exemplifies the best of our city. Rest in peace,” DeBlasio wrote on Twitter.
Private First Class Emmanuel Mensah
PFC Mensah was assigned to the 107th Military Police Company and was to begin training with them in January. He is credited with saving at least four lives after returning to the building three separate times. Mensah lived in apartment 11 but his body was found in apartment 15. He apparently died of smoke inhalation.
