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Video Appears To Show Illegal Fireworks Sparking Devastating Inwood Apartment Fire
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 6, 2020
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Courtesy KH
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 6, 2020
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A woman and her daughter are now homeless after their upper Manhattan apartment was destroyed by a fire that appears to have been caused by people lighting fireworks on the sidewalk during the July 4th holiday.
The incident happened around 1:20 a.m. on July 5th at an apartment building on Nagle Avenue near Dyckman Street in Inwood. A video below shows unidentified individuals lighting over half a dozen fireworks on the sidewalk, with several of them blasting toward the building, apparently sparking the fire.
Here was what it looked like after firefighters arrived:
And here's what the inside of the apartment looked like the next day:
The FDNY confirmed that two civilian patients were treated on the scene, and that the official cause is still under investigation.
Precious Tejada and her daughter, who lived at the apartment, were thankfully not home at the time of the incident. Tejada's friend has helped set up a GoFundMe for her in the wake of the fire. "This is not ok ! Everything was lost!" the friend writes. "Her and her daughter have nowhere to go." They've raised over $13,000 as of Monday at 4 p.m.
July 4th and the brief legal firework displays may have come and gone, but the reports of illegal fireworks have continued unabated. One person put up a video on Reddit showing what it was like hearing and seeing fireworks go on outside their window for "seven straight hours" this weekend.
Fireworks in NYC - 7 straight hours of this and I'm a little fried... from r/nyc
Complaints about illegal fireworks have skyrocketed in recent weeks, culminating in a crackdown by both city and state officials in an attempt to stop the flow of illegal fireworks from nearby states like Pennsylvania.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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