Two elderly women were killed in two fatal fires in Brooklyn and Queens that erupted within two hours, FDNY officials said Friday.
The back-to-back fires came a day after another person died in a separate Brooklyn blaze, this time in Sheepshead Bay. The victim in that case remained unidentified on Friday.
Firefighters were dispatched to a six-story apartment building on 35th St. near 31st Ave. in Astoria after a fire broke out on the third floor just before 11 p.m. on Thursday.
A woman in her 90s and a 61-year-old woman were removed from an apartment and taken to Mount Sinai Queens, where the older woman died. Her name was not immediately disclosed.
The younger woman was listed in critical condition at the hospital, officials said. The fire was put out by 11:30 p.m.
Less than two hours later, another fire occurred in a six-story building in Brooklyn, just a block from Prospect Park on Winthrop St. near Flatbush Ave. in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.
Firefighters battling the 12:50 a.m. blaze found an 81-year-old woman dead inside a third floor apartment, officials said. The fire was extinguished by 2 a.m.
The name of the woman wasn’t immediately released.
Just before 2 a.m. Thursday, a fire broke out inside an Ocean Ave. building near Avenue W in Sheepshead Bay, police said.
An unidentified tenant’s lifeless body was discovered in the building as the blaze was contained around 3:43 a.m., according to an FDNY spokesman.
One resident was displaced as a result of the blaze, cops said.
The Fire Marshals were trying to determine the causes of all three fires.
The back-to-back fatal fires come about a month after the FDNY reported that 13 elderly New Yorkers died during a deadly six week span between early November and mid-December — a continuing trend FDNY officials called, “very, very concerning.”
Last year’s spike in fire deaths among the city’s senior citizens included a 95-year-old Queens grandmother who died along with her great granddaughter, an 89-year-old Bronx man who had just beaten cancer and a 90-year-old sharecropper’s daughter from Georgia who dedicated her life to teaching.
“(It) is higher than we’ve experienced in the past,” FDNY Chief Fire Marshal Dan Flynn said about the high percentage of elderly fire deaths.
In a PSA posted on social media in November, Flynn urged residents to formulate escape plans with their elderly relatives, friends and neighbors in case of fires.
“Having a clear, simple and practiced escape plan can make all the difference in getting out safely,” Flynn said, recommending families visit FDNYSmart.org for a list of winter weather fire safety tips.
First and foremost, New Yorkers should have working smoke detectors and cleared pathways to exits and fire escapes, the chief said.
