Fires and Firefighters

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    Harlem House Where Billie Holiday Lived Is Damaged in Fire

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    The jazz legend lived in the five-story building on West 139th Street as a teenager with her mother.A four-alarm fire on Wednesday evening severely damaged a building in Harlem where the jazz legend Billie Holiday once lived.The Fire Department said it received the call at about 9 p.m. and extinguished the fire, which spread through all five floors of the building, shortly before 1 a.m. on Thursday morning. No civilians were injured, though four firefighters sustained minor injuries. The cause of the fire is under investigation.“Due to the structural stability of this building, as it was vacant for many years and the amount of fire, we had to pull our members out of the building and go to an exterior fire attack,” Kevin Woods, the Fire Department’s chief of operations, said in a news conference.A portrait of Billie Holiday at Carnegie Hall in 1946.Heritage Images, via Getty ImagesThe building is owned by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which is responsible for maintaining the quality and affordability of housing, among other duties.“Even before the fire, HPD had been actively working with our partners to plan the complete rehabilitation of this building through our preservation programs, relocating tenants to safer housing as part of that process,” Natasha Kersey, a spokeswoman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, said in an emailed statement to The Times.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Explosion at Fuel Depot Near Florence Kills at Least Two

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      Officials said it would take time to determine the cause of the explosion. At least nine people were injured in the blast.At least two people were killed and another nine injured Monday in an explosion at a fuel depot on the outskirts of Florence, according to city officials and the company that ran the facility. The cause of the explosion had not yet been determined, the company said.The death toll could rise, as three workers at the depot in the town of Calenzano remained unaccounted for, the officials said. The explosion occurred around 10:20 a.m. Television images showed a huge plume of black smoke rising from the site.ENI, the Italian energy company that owns the depot, said in a statement that the explosion had been confined to a loading area and a resulting fire had not spread to nearby tanks.Italy’s minister for civil protection, Nello Musumeci, said on social media that rescue workers were deployed immediately after the explosion. Local hospitals were put on high alert.Teams of firefighters arrived from Florence and surrounding towns, as well as units from nearby airports, and they managed to put out the fire “quickly, given the situation,” said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s firefighters.Italy’s national civil protection agency issued an SMS text alert to residents within about three miles of the site, advising them to remain indoors and stay clear of the facility.Officials in Calenzano urged citizens to close their windows and limit outdoor activities. Two days of mourning were announced for Monday and Tuesday. All municipal events were canceled for both days.The mayor of Florence, Sara Funaro, described the situation as “very, very bad,” and said in a statement that the city would offer psychological assistance to the families of the victims.“In these moments,” she said, “we must think of the families who are the first to be affected; we have to be close to them.”Luca Tescaroli, the chief prosecutor of the nearby city of Prato, said in a statement that his office would open a case to determine the causes of the explosion and whether anyone should be held accountable, Italian media reported. More

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      Notre-Dame Holds First Public Mass in Years: ‘Fire Has Not Conquered Stone’

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      Sunday was the first opportunity for worshipers to return to the cathedral, beloved by the faithful and secular alike, since the 2019 fire that devastated it.Many Parisians can tell you exactly what they were doing when they heard that Notre-Dame was burning five years ago.Many of them instinctively rushed toward the building, and lined the Seine River to watch in horror as flames devoured the ancient lead roof, sending the 19th-century wooden spire tumbling down, punching holes through the vaults and burning the pews below.Some dropped to their knees and prayed, but the cathedral is not just a sanctuary for the faithful. Nor — its millions of visitors a year notwithstanding — is it just a tourist attraction. Notre-Dame, as the crowds of stricken Parisians testified to on that April 2019 day, is the heart of their city, part of the essential fabric of its identity, and a part of them.Notre-Dame is, however, first and foremost a church, and on Sunday evening, worshipers returned there as its first regular Mass was celebrated below the soaring stone arches — the old ones indistinguishable from the new.Seats for the Mass were in great demand.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times“Five years after its destruction, here it stands again, ready to welcome the prayers of the faithful, to welcome the heart, the cry of the heart of all those who come here from all over the world,” Msgr.Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the cathedral, declared in his opening remarks. “Fire has not conquered stone, despair has not conquered life.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With Pageantry and Dignitaries, France Unveils a Reborn Notre-Dame

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      Five years after a ruinous fire, the reopening of the cathedral restored it in full glory to the Paris skyline and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France.Five years after a fire that devoured its roof and nearly collapsed its walls, a renovated Notre-Dame Cathedral reopened its doors on Saturday, its centuries-old bell clanging, its 8,000-pipe organ first groaning — and then roaring back to life.It was an emotional rebirth for one of the world’s most recognized monuments, a Gothic medieval masterpiece and cornerstone of European culture and faith.“Brothers and sisters, let us enter now into Notre-Dame,” Laurent Ulrich, the archbishop of Paris, said before poking three times on the cathedral doors with the point of his staff, made with a beam of the roof that survived the fire.As he pushed open the door, the sounds of brass instruments and the melodic voices of dozens of children singing in the cathedral choir filled the nave.The ceremony restored the cathedral to the Parisian skyline in its full glory and delivered a much-needed morale boost for France at a time of political dysfunction, a stagnating economy and a bitter budget standoff that this week resulted in the toppling of the center-right government.With the successful reopening of Notre-Dame, on a schedule that many had derided as too ambitious, France showed off its ability to execute major projects, as it did with the Summer Olympics, and exhibited its artistic and artisanal expertise.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Notre-Dame Shines, and World Gets a Sneak Peek, on Macron’s Televised Tour

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      “You’ve achieved what was said to be impossible,” the French president told workers at the Paris monument, which will reopen after the 2019 fire.President Emmanuel Macron of France toured the Paris cathedral five years after it was damaged in a devastating fire. The landmark is expected to reopen to the public next month.Pool photo by Christophe Petit TessonThe world got its first glimpse on Friday of the newly renovated Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.President Emmanuel Macron of France took viewers on a live televised tour of the cathedral’s dazzlingly clean interior and rebuilt roofing, five years after a devastating fire that was followed by a colossal reconstruction effort.“I believe you are seeing the cathedral like it has never been seen before,” Philippe Jost, the head of the reconstruction task force, told Mr. Macron.The French president and his wife, Brigitte, gushed with admiration and craned their necks as they entered the 12th and 13th-century Gothic monument alongside the mayor and archbishop of Paris.More than 450,000 square feet of cream-colored limestone inside the cathedral have been meticulously stripped of ash, lead dust and centuries of accumulated grime, leaving its soaring vaults, thick columns and tall walls almost startlingly bright.Mr. Macron’s visit before the monument is scheduled to reopen next week was an opportunity for him to shift focus away from the country’s political turmoil and budgetary woes. It will put the spotlight on a bet that he made, and that appears to have paid off, to rebuild the cathedral on a tight five-year deadline.“You’ve achieved what was said to be impossible,” Mr. Macron told an assembly of over half of the 2,000 workers and craftsmen from around France — and beyond — who contributed to the cathedral’s reconstruction. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lahaina Fire Settlement is Caught up in Legal Fight With Insurers

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      Insurers that paid claims in Maui say a deal unfairly keeps them from recouping their own losses.The ashes of last summer’s devastating fire in Lahaina on Maui, which killed 102 people and destroyed the town, were still smoldering when talk turned to how fraught the rebuilding process would be.Fire victims would need help fast, and Hawaii officials pushed hard for a quick resolution to the avalanche of lawsuits filed against the entities that had caused the fire: the state’s electric utility, a school system and Maui County, among others.Just days shy of the fire’s one-year anniversary in August, a settlement was announced: Together, those responsible would pay $4 billion to settle more than 600 lawsuits; compensate over 10,000 homeowners, businesses and others; and — critically — keep key institutions, like the utility, solvent.But getting a deal done that quickly meant adopting an unorthodox approach to the insurance industry’s role in the settlement — one that the industry is challenging. Now, hopes for a timely payout are at the mercy of the courts.Typically, insurers pay claims and then sue whomever they blame for the damage — like the driver who might have caused a car accident — to recover some of what they paid. In the Lahaina settlement, the insurers are instead expected to seek repayment from the people and businesses they insured. A person who received a share of the $4 billion deal from a pain-and-suffering claim, for example, could have to pay a portion of that to the insurance company.The industry is balking at this idea, saying it upends a core piece of its business model. Insurers have turned to state and federal courts to try to block the deal, slowing it down and frustrating fire victims and Hawaii leaders.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Wildfire Grows in New Jersey and New York, Despite Modest Rainfall

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      The Jennings Creek fire is currently burning across 3,500 acres, officials said, and is expected to grow to over 5,000 acres.A wildfire consuming a vast stretch of hilly forest along the New York-New Jersey border continued to grow on Monday despite the first significant rainfall in nearly six weeks, fire officials said. Bone-dry weather and gusts of up to 40 miles per hour are expected to sweep through the region on Tuesday, raising the risk that the fire will continue to spread.More than 3,500 acres were burning in New Jersey and New York as of Monday night, and the fire was expected to grow to more than 5,000 acres, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said.About 20 percent of the New Jersey portion of the fire was contained, according to the state’s Forest Fire Service. It was not clear how much of the New York portion of the fire was contained.The rain on Sunday night, measuring just a quarter of an inch across the region, only temporarily slowed the fire’s growth, said Christopher Franek, an assistant division fire warden for the Forest Fire Service.“We’re throwing everything we’ve got at it,” he said. “A lot of manual labor is choking on smoke and dust.” Five thousand acres is nearly eight square miles — about a third the size of Manhattan.Hundreds of firefighters from dozens of fire departments in both states are battling the blaze in a rugged patch of Passaic County in New Jersey and Orange County in New York near the Appalachian Trail.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Firefighters Gain More Control of Southern California Blaze That Spread Rapidly

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      After the Mountain fire ballooned to more than 20,000 acres in less than 24 hours, improving weather conditions helped crews contain more of the blaze on Saturday.Calming winds helped firefighters gain the upper hand on Saturday against the Mountain fire in Southern California, after three days of pitched battle using dozens of aircraft, hundreds of fire trucks and legions of firefighters on foot wielding saws and shovels.High winds and thick vegetation fueled the Mountain fire, which started on Wednesday near the city of Oxnard in Ventura County and exploded to more than 20,000 acres in less than 24 hours. But the winds died down on Friday, aiding fire crews in their fight against the blaze.Officials said Saturday evening that the fire was 21 percent contained and that it had not jumped its perimeter. The nearly 3,000 personnel working to tame the blaze planned to “mop up” hot spots and move through burned neighborhoods to assess the damage, officials said.The Ventura County fire chief, Dustin Gardner, said at a briefing Friday evening that he was grateful for the emergency workers who responded on the day the fire broke out. They “brought this calm to where we’re at today,” he said.Earlier in the week, fierce winds that gusted up to 80 miles per hour hurled flaming embers far beyond the fire line, sparking new fires, setting houses ablaze and grounding some firefighting aircraft. Roughly 10,000 people were forced to evacuate in what quickly became one of the most destructive wildfires in Southern California in recent years. As of Friday night, about 2,000 were still waiting to go home. Roughly 130 structures have been reported destroyed and damaged. There were no known fatalities, and no reports of missing people, Sheriff James Fryhoff of Ventura County, said in the Friday briefing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Smoky Smell Engulfs NYC After Fires in New Jersey and Brooklyn

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      New Yorkers encountered an unsettling smell on Saturday, a day after fires broke out in Prospect Park and across the Hudson River.The smell of acrid smoke spread throughout New York City on Saturday and persisted into the evening, a day after brush fires broke out on Friday in Brooklyn, the Bronx and nearby New Jersey. It was a surreal experience for a city that is rarely home to wildfires but is in the middle of a drought.On Saturday, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation placed the city, as well as Rockland and Westchester Counties, under an air quality alert until midnight. The smell of smoke woke Desi Yvette, 36, in her Williamsburg home in the middle of the night.“It was close to 2 and I just stayed up for a while,” Ms. Yvette said as she walked her Maltese mix, Midas, on Saturday. “I thought maybe there was a fire nearby, but I didn’t hear any sirens. So I was like, I don’t think it’s an emergency or we would have been alerted. But it does smell bad.”Ms. Yvette had not heard about the brush fire that broke out on Friday night in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, burning two acres in a heavily wooded area. “It’s crazy that it smells all the way over here,” she added. “It’s just been a week of, like, disaster.”

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement on Saturday that there were multiple wildfires burning across New York State, noting that Hudson Valley, Long Island and the Catskills region were at high risk.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More