Brooklyn apartment fire takes lives of four newborn puppies; resident suspects scooter battery sparked blaze

Ellen Moynihan, Emma Seiwell, New York Daily News
·2 min read

Four newborn puppies died Friday afternoon when a fire possibly caused by a lithium-ion battery tore through an apartment in a six-story Brooklyn building, residents and the FDNY said.

Gabriel Jodah, who lived inside the apartment where the fire broke out, was grateful he made it out alive — but was heartbroken to learn his family’s four newborn puppies perished.

None of the people in the building were reported injured, the Fire Department said.

Sixty firefighters responded to the blaze inside the fourth-floor apartment in East New York at 340 Georgia Ave. near Sutter Ave. just before 2:15 p.m. and had the fire under control within forty minutes.

“I’m just in shock right now. I’m happy I made it,” said Jodah, 30, who was at home when the fire broke.

Jodah believes the fire was sparked by an e-bike that belonged to his father, a delivery worker. Jodah’s father and cousin were not home at the time of the fire. FDNY officials were still working to determine the cause of the fire on Friday night.

“I was home alone. I heard this noise — I thought it was the dogs,” said Jodah. “It was not normal, like a snapping noise.”

Jodah escaped the smoky blaze by climbing through a window to a Fire Department ladder. “As soon as the ladder came, I jumped on it,” he said.

“It was real bad. If I couldn’t get out I’d be stuck there,” he said. “I’m still shocked.”

But he had to leave the four helpless pups behind. “They were newborns,” Jodah said of the puppies, which were four weeks old. Their mother survived the fire, he said.

Many residents scrambled to exit via fire escapes when the smoke spread through the building.

“All the smoke — it was really bad. It went into the house,” said Betania Urena, 48. “We went outside and everything was black.”

FDNY officials have blamed lithium ion batteries in nearly 200 blazes this year that resulted in at least six deaths. A blaze Nov. 5 on E. 52nd St. in Manhattan injured nearly 40 people and resulted in the dramatic rescue of a woman who was dangling from a window of the apartment where the blaze broke out.