7-Alarm Fire In New York Apartment Building Started With A Toaster

It took more than 200 firefighters to knock out a massive fire at a six-story apartment building in Washington Heights that was started by a woman making toast in her kitchen. FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro says the seven-alarm blaze at Riverside Drive and West 157th Street started just before 2 p.m., starting in a kitchen on the second floor and racing up a dumbwaiter shaft inside the nearly 100-year-old building. Firefighters had difficulty knocking out the fire in very cold conditions and getting to flames through a hard-to-reach, wide-open cockloft, according to Nigro.