A fire that ripped through a Harlem building Friday was started by a lithium-ion battery charging in an apartment shared by six delivery workers, according to new information from the Fire Department.
Two of the six men were at home when the fire began, though FDNY didn’t know how many batteries were charging in their third-floor apartment, located in a six-story building on St Nicholas Place.
Journalist Fazil Khan, 27, who lived on the fourth floor, died in the fire, and 22 others were injured. Khan was an education reporter for The Hechinger Report and had contributed to THE CITY.
Before the deadly blaze, which was the 31st caused by lithium-ion batteries in the city this year, tenants in the building had complained to the landlord about electric bikes chained to the outside fence and raised alarm about the potential for fires from charging e-bike batteries. Delivery workers in particular rely on e-bikes and e-scooters to do their jobs.
Sam Klein, the building owner, did not respond to messages left by THE CITY Monday.
While the fire burned, an apartment door on the third floor was left ajar, which contributed to the fire’s spread, FDNY officials said Friday.
Hours after the exploding e-bike battery triggered the deadly fire, city housing inspectors discovered a non-functioning self-closing door to the roof that may have caused a calamitous chimney effect that spread thick smoke through the building.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development issued a citation to “replace or repair the self-closing door that is missing or defective” in the bulkhead door leading from the sixth floor to the roof.
A similar faulty door existed at a deadly fire at the Twin Parks apartment building in the Bronx in 2022, which killed 17 tenants.
Fires caused by lithium-ion batteries have been on the rise in New York City. Lawmakers at the local and national level over the past year have sought to take legislative action to limit dangerous uncertified batteries and prevent unsafe charging.
Since June of last year, fire inspectors have cited 106 potentially explosive violations in residential buildings related to improper e-bike charging, THE CITY previously reported.
In 2019, the FDNY counted 30 battery-related fires, a figure that skyrocketed to 268 in 2023, when 18 New Yorkers died in blazes caused by exploding batteries.
This year, there have been 31 battery fires so far. Khan was the only fatality of 2024.
A Life of Intention and Dedication
Khan, who moved from New Delhi, India, to get a M.S. in data journalism from Columbia University, which he completed in 2021, quickly made his mark among New York City’s local and nonprofit reporters.
Khan most recently worked as a data journalist covering education inequality for The Hechinger Report. His work there explored how college costs have increased more for the lowest-income students, and he created a guide to help prospective college students evaluate campus culture.
He previously contributed to THE CITY’s Missing Them project, which honored those who died as a result of COVID. He reported that 1 in 200 children in New York City lost a parent or caregiver to the disease — nearly double the rate nationwide — with Black, Hispanic and Asian children three times as likely as white children to experience the loss.
That reporting inspired lawmakers to introduce a bill creating so-called “baby bonds” to support those children.
Beyond the newsroom, Khan made a lasting impression with his many friends, including those at THE CITY, who praised his ambition, integrity and thoughtfulness. They remembered him as someone to turn to for advice, and said he was a big fan of cricket and a skilled card player. His recent interests included Formula 1, skating and table tennis.
“Fazil lived his life with intention, dedication and an admiration for the little things, as evident in his morning tea ritual as in his profound storytelling,” said former colleague and Columbia friend Sheridan Wall, in a statement.
Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu, another friend from Columbia, said, “Fazil should be here preparing for Ramadan, which was his favorite time of the year.”
Khan’s friends set up a fundraiser to cover funeral costs and help get him back to his mother, five siblings and grandmother in India. His friends confirmed that his remains will arrive with his family by early Wednesday morning.
“There is not a single topic that he can’t talk about for hours. Just ask and he has an opinion about everything,” Tanuja Khan, Khan’s sister, shared in a message with the news outlet Documented. “You will not be missed because you will always remain in our heart forever. And we can never ever let you go from our life.”
His friends and colleagues will host a memorial at Columbia Journalism School on Wednesday.
Federal Laws Stalled
The rise of lithium-ion batteries in bikes and scooters has garnered attention from local and national lawmakers who are trying to regulate them.
The City Council last year passed a package of bills meant to restrict the types of batteries available for purchase and expand educational efforts around safety, proper charging and maintenance. And Gov. Kathy Hochul in January said she’d propose a bill banning sales of e-bikes without certified batteries.
Last year, Democratic New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-The Bronx) introduced legislation to give the Consumer Product Safety Commission an explicit directive to create federal, mandatory standards for how to safely build and import those batteries.
Despite enjoying rare bipartisan support, the bills have yet to be taken up for a vote in either the House or Senate.
“Sen. Gillbrand is continuing to work to build support with Democratic and Republican senators, and her House partners are working to bring it to a vote,” said spokesperson Elizabeth Landau. “She remains optimistic we can work to pass it into law.”
Nineteen representatives co-sponsor the bill alongside Torres, including six other members of the New York City delegation.
Reps. Nydia Velázquez, Gregory Meeks, Nicole Malliotakis and Hakeem Jeffries are not co-sponsors. Representative-elect Tom Suozzi, who won the seat vacated by George Santos, will be sworn into Congress on Wednesday.
A spokesperson Malliotakis said she requested to be a co-sponsor in January. Michael McGinnis, a spokesperson for Velázquez, said she’d support the bill if it came up for a vote, but has been “focused on advancing” her bill that would create publicly accessible safe charging for e-mobility devices.
A spokesperson for Jeffries pointed out he supported the call with his colleagues, including Meeks, for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to hold manufacturers accountable for meeting battery safety standards.
Representatives for Meeks and Suozzi did not respond to requests for comment.