Talk:2022 Bronx apartment fire

"interior stairwells, instead of external fire escapes"

The way that's written is odd - internal fire stairs are viewed by building codes as superior to fire escapes for fire safety (obviously assuming doors are intact and closed). The way it's written implies they're not. Fire escapes are only permitted as stopgap safety measures in older construction where a fire-rated interior stairway is not possible. This ought to be revised to remove the strange emphasis. Acroterion (talk) 19:06, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Right now it reads as follows: " In a configuration common in high-rise buildings,[10] and in keeping with New York City building codes for residential buildings constructed after 1968[17][18], the building had interior stairwells, instead of external fire escapes[19]." Seems like a fairly straightforward passage to me. Coretheapple (talk) 19:19, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It would be worth mentioning if a post-1960s building had fire escapes. It seems to me that bringing them up at all when they're not there and would have been prohibited anyway is an odd emphasis. 7Acroterion (talk) 19:21, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I see your point. I thought all that text was from coverage of the fire. It was not. I've removed, retaining only what derives from coverage of the fire.. Coretheapple (talk) 19:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. This kind of event usually provokes a revision of the building codes, but I suspect in this case it will come down to doors being propped open on multiple levels. I'm waiting to hear whether there was a stair pressurization system, or if one was functioning. I've heard of one or two buildings of that vintage that had a stair exhaust system, which would render the stairs unusable. Acroterion (talk) 19:40, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes it will be interesting to see how things shape up. Such massive amounts of smoke from one apartment fire! Coretheapple (talk) 19:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the sentence, both before and after revision, insinuates something nefarious. I added the clause about 1968 building code, with 2 sources, to try to remedy that. In my opinion, an even better solution would be to delete the sentence entirely, since external fire escapes are pretty much irrelevant to building built in 1972; I opted not to do that because when I remove a sentence with a citation, I expect to be reverted. But if no one objects here, maybe we should! Zhanmusi (talk) 19:56, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I brought it up here for much the same reason, I didn't want to mess up the citations.

Have any sources mentioned if the building had fire sprinklers? I think the obvious answer is "no." but I don't want to assume. Acroterion (talk) 20:06, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I certainly have no problem with removing it. Initially it seemed like a good idea but I see how it might give the wrong impression by raising a kind of non-issue. Coretheapple (talk) 20:12, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

 Done and it didn't create a footnote issue. Good question about sprinklers. Offhand I would say no. Coretheapple (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

There were no sprinklers in the building. Dreameditsbrooklyn (talk) 20:46, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I didn't think so, or wouldn't have gotten out of hand. Do you have a reference so we can cite it? Acroterion (talk) 20:53, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll try to find a source to be cited. I am a reporter currently at the scene of the fire since earlier this morning. Dreameditsbrooklyn (talk) 21:00, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That would be great, thanks. By the way, 17 years on Wikipedia? I didn't even know there was a Wikipedia 17 years ago. Coretheapple (talk) 23:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Found it. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/10/nyregion/bronx-fire-nyc?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur#bronx-apartment-building-did-not-have-sprinklers-in-most-areas Coretheapple (talk) 23:03, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

External fire escapes are a common sight in NYC even on big buildings... that's likely why the news article mentions it -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 16:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. However, it's a digression for the WP article to mention them when they never applied to the building in the first place. Acroterion (talk) 17:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I second 65.92.246.142, when I read the article, I did not find it odd that the article mentioned external fire escapes. That being said, internal stairways are common even in the early 20th century. Think of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company which did not have external fire exits. Jurisdicta (talk) 02:58, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

"tore through"

One more nitpick. We're in danger of entering bus plunge territory with this article and the 2022 Philadelphia apartment fire with fires that "tore through" them. Strictly speaking, the Bronx fire only tore through the apartment, and most people were killed by the smoke from that apartment - the building did not burn out. Can we find a more suitable lead statement? Acroterion (talk) 21:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Not a nit at all. I agree. Let's put our virtual heads together. Coretheapple (talk) 21:30, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I've tweaked the lead a bit. Also I don't think we need to geolocate New York City as in the United States. Coretheapple (talk) 21:37, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Much better, just the facts. Thanks. Acroterion (talk) 22:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed! Coretheapple (talk) 22:59, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

9/11 doesn't count as a fire because ...

... I presume, that the index fire for "deadliest since" is the Happy Land fire because all the deaths now and then were directly due to the fire, as opposed to 9/11 which, while technically a fire and some of the victims (we'll probably never really know) in the towers (as opposed to the planes) may well have died of smoke inhalation or thermal injury, caused most of its deaths through building collapse and so technically they're not fire deaths. Is this right?

I ask because last week I spent a lot of time creating and populating Category:Building collapses caused by fire, and I noticed that in those instances deaths likely caused by the whole or partial collapse of a building already aflame are usually attributed to the fire, sometimes when the vast majority of deaths came that way, i.e. the 1977 Yili fire on DYK at the end of November, where most of the 697 fatalities are believed to have occurred when the roof fell in.

So, do we not count 9/11 as a "fire" here even though the building collapses would in all likelihood never have occurred without the crashed airliners setting the buildings on fire? Is there some reason for this? If we can find it in a reliable source, we should put it in the article as an endnote or something. Daniel Case (talk) 23:38, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Good question. I think the main problem is that the sources for this article, without exception as far as I can see, make no mention of Sept. 11 in describing how this fire ranked along with all the others. I find that deeply problematic but how can we fix that without venturing into OR territory? I would be happy to include the Sept. 11 attacks (and at one point this article did so) but aren't our hands tied by the sources? Coretheapple (talk) 14:26, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Note that Sept. 11 is indeed correctly listed in Skyscraper fire, which is a list of high-rise fires. That contradicts this article. Coretheapple (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

9/11 seems to be a weird comparison and I don't think the average NYer would refer to that as a structure fire in the same vein as this incident (and also the 2017 BX fire). Not to mention, afaik there is no way to know how many 9/11 victims were cosines by fire/smoke rather than the impact and collapse. 9/11 was a much more complex event than a simple structure fire. Headphase (talk) 18:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I just get the feeling that the media is assiduously avoiding this comparison, probably because they don't want to be accused of somehow diminishing 9/11 by making it. And it was also just such a singular event that no one wants to think of it as somehow in some remote way a "normal" disaster. Daniel Case (talk) 04:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that may be the reason but it is strange. I understand Headphase's point, but the fact is that the fire was the direct cause of the Twin Towers collapse, so therefore I don't think there is a need to drill down into the cause of death. All deaths that day derived from a fire, and of course it was the biggest tragedy in NYFD history. Coretheapple (talk) 14:50, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Calling 9/11 a fire is pedantically correct, but effectively mischaracterizes the events of that day. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Correct. It was three disasters that do not always occur together combined into one, and exponentiated: not just one but two crashed jetliners, with full fuel tanks to boot; the fire resulting from those crashes, and then the complete collapse of the city's then-two-tallest buildings after all that. And on top of that all deliberately induced. Unless something like that hadn't actually happened, you couldn't imagine it.

I think what might have worked better for the media was to say that this is the deadliest fire in the Bronx since Happy Land, for which there would be no argument. Daniel Case (talk) 07:04, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Background section

This section swelled to excessive length and excessive detail unrelated to the fire, so I removed the parts not directly related to the fire. The Twin Parks development warrants an article of its own, and the removed material should be moved there, with a headnote at the top of the section referring to that as the "main article." I will try to create such an article today but I would encourage other editors to beat me to it. Coretheapple (talk) 15:08, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

 Done See Twin Parks (New York City) and section headnote. I think an article on that project is long overdue. I have tagged both this article and the Twin Parks article with the "copied" template. This is my first use of that tag, so feel free to remove it if it is not warranted. Coretheapple (talk) 15:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC) I did get it wrong. Sorry. Have moved the "copied" template to Talk in the Twin Parks article. Coretheapple (talk) 16:16, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Article name - Twin Parks fire?

In the interest of clarity and easy identification, would it be helpful to rename this article to "Twin Parks fire" (or some variation) after the building? As is probably common knowledge among editors (but not necessarily the general public), we also have an entry for the 2017 Bronx apartment fire and I could see these articles being easily confused by those looking for information in the future. Also, I think the scale and severity of the fire warrants a unique name.

There is precedent for this at Grenfell Tower fire and even NYC's own Happy Land fire. (Of course this page would still be left as a redirect) Headphase (talk) 18:48, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

That definitely has a less generic sound to it. Agree. Coretheapple (talk) 19:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not going to vote here, but I do thank you for your hard work on this page. Personally, as a NYC resident, I can say that 99/100 people have no idea what the name of the actual building is and never will. I think from the perspective of the average user, the name would be better as-is. Dreameditsbrooklyn (talk) 04:38, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

True, but I think that the attention now being focused on the project will make it much better known than before. I actually had heard of Twin Parks and thought it was a neighborhood name. Coretheapple (talk) 15:06, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Grenfell Tower was well-known locally before the fire & was consistently used by the media when reporting the fire. The vast majority of people don't know of Twin Parks. Jim Michael (talk) 19:00, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I would second Jim Michael's response. I did a search on Twin Parks and could not find anything in recent news prior to the tragedy to justify the name change. If there are other factors to consider, I would like to hear them as I am open to support this change with new compelling information. Jurisdicta (talk) 19:54, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I can live with either title, but I do suggest that editors read Twin Parks. It is definitely a notable housing project that has received substantial attention, good and bad, over the years. The building itself, 333 East 181st Street, is of architectural merit. I've just scratched the surface of the pre-fire coverage and found much coverage. Coretheapple (talk) 21:14, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

It's never been well-known outside NYC & its name isn't being included by the media in titles of articles about this fire. Unless there's another notable fire in the Bronx this year, our title shouldn't be changed. Jim Michael (talk) 13:55, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

While the building was not previously well-known outside of its own neighborhood, the main purpose of a name change is to assist with disambiguation vs. the other notable Bronx fire from 2017. AFAIK, that building did not have a name. Headphase (talk) 18:29, 14 January 2022 (UTC)