NYC fire commissioner says blaze that killed 5 ‘very likely’ set intentionally

NYC official: Blaze that killed 5 ‘likely’ arson

NEW YORK — New York City’s fire commissioner says it appears arson caused a weekend blaze that killed five people in Brooklyn.

Commissioner Salvatore Cassano told reporters: “It’s very likely that this was an incendiary fire.”

Tests for accelerants were incomplete. But Cassano says accidental fires don’t usually start at the front door of a building.

Four men and a woman, all Guatemalan immigrants, perished on Saturday. The woman’s 2-month-old daughter suffered a fractured skull. The baby’s father tossed her from a third-floor window of the burning building.

The fire was the city’s deadliest since 2007. That blaze killed 10 people, nine of them children, in the Bronx.