We’re going to begin tonight with the latest deadliest apartment fire in the Bronx that killed seventeen including eight children. Investigators are looking into whether a self-closing door malfunctioned and allowed smoke to spread through the New York City high rise, turning the stairwells into death trap. Now the cause of the fire is being blamed on an electric space heater. Meanwhile more than a dozen others remain hospitalized, including several in critical condition. And New York City mayor warned today that the death toll could rise.

We have just learned that federal regulators have opened an investigation into whether the space heater that sparked this fire was defective. Firefighters have described battling thick smoke to save people inside, even as their oxygen tanks began to empty. The fire started in a bedroom of a third-floor duplex apartment after a space heater malfunctioned. Investigators are looking into whether the safety doors, designed to close to prevent the fire also malfunctioned or if they were propped open, allowing smoke to spread quickly throughout the nineteen-story building. Space heaters are linked to more than twenty-five thousand house fire every year, resulting in more than three hundred deaths in the United States. Today, the FDNY issued these reminders: Keep space heaters away from bedding or curtains; Don’t use in a bathroom; Never use an extension cord. Seventeen people lost their lives in this tragedy. It comes less than a week after an apartment fire Philadelphia claimed the lives of twelve people. And Mayor called this a global tragedy because many of the victims are immigrants from Gambia and West Africa. Now an online fundraiser to help those impacted has already raised half million dollars in just one day.

:::tip prop

• : : to support by placing something under or against —often used with up. 用东西支撑

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:::tip impasse

• : a predicament affording no obvious escape. 绝境，困局

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