Deadly NYC fire lit by child playing with stove

The National -- New York City's deadliest residential fire in decades was accidentally lit by a 3 ½-year-old boy playing with the burners on his mother's stove, officials said Friday.

The flames spread quickly through the kitchen, then roared through a door the boy's mother had left open as she fled her first floor apartment with her two children, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said. A stairwell acted like a chimney, carrying the flames through the entire building within minutes and blocking the main escape route.

Twelve people died, including girls ages 1, 2 and 7 and a boy whose age was not given.

"We were told the boy had a history of playing with the burners and turning them on, and before the mother knew it, this fire had gotten a good hold of the kitchen," Mr Nigro said.

Many residents of the building were able to flee via fire escapes. At least 20 people were clambering down the icy, metal escapes when firefighters arrived, Mr Nigro said.

Excluding the September 11 attacks, it was the deadliest fire in the city since 87 people were killed at a social club fire in the same Bronx neighborhood in 1990.

The blaze broke out on the first floor of a five-story building just before 7 pm and quickly tore through the roughly century-old structure near the Bronx Zoo.

Some tenants of the building, a mix of native New Yorkers and Latino and African immigrants, climbed down fire escapes. But the flames moved so fast that many never made it out of their apartments.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

About 170 firefighters worked in bone-chilling cold, just 15 degrees, to rescue about a dozen people from the building.