The New York City Fire Department has discovered the cause of a deadly three-alarm blaze that killed three people living in a Crown Heights brownstone in Brooklyn on Sunday, Nov. 12.
Authorities linked the fire to the combustion of scooters being powered by cheap, unsafe lithium-ion batteries that don’t meet safety standards.
The family members are bereaved and baffled, seeking answers as to why these dangerous batteries are on the market and how the vendors do not make consumers aware of their hazards.
Matriarch Albertha West, 81, her son Mike West, 58, and her grandson, Jamiyl West, 33, lost their lives in the devastating fire. Authorities reported that the fire originated on the bottom floor of their home around 4:30 a.m. Despite the efforts of first responders who rushed them to Kings County Hospital, the lives of the victims could not be saved.
According to a family friend, Tyshawn Johnson, 24, Jamiyl used chargers similar to the battery identified by the FDNY as the source of the fire to charge the electronic bikes he used for delivery jobs.
“He used the e-bikes for deliveries just like how everybody else used the e-bikes,” said Johnson during an interview with the New York Daily News. “He charged them up at night so he could have a full battery in the morning. But he doesn’t know the battery’s not good, because regular people, they don’t know. Who would think of anything?”
At this point, it remains unclear who owned the battery responsible for the tragic incident. Still, authorities confirmed an e-bike was charging in the doorway and staircase of a Brooklyn brownstone before it exploded.
“It’s very common with these e-bike devices where there’s no time to get out. They start to smolder, and within 20-30 seconds, they erupt into flames,” FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said, according to CNN.
Even more tragic, according to the family, was that three days before the fire, one of Ms. Albertha’s…
Read the full article here
