12 dead in New York City Apartment fire.

Investigators in New York City searched early on Friday for the cause of a blaze that ripped through an apartment building in the Bronx and killed 12 people including four children, in the city’s deadliest fire in at least a quarter of a century.

The fire broke out a little before 7 p.m. (0000 GMT) on the first floor of a brick building and quickly spread upstairs, city Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro told a news conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio.
More than 160 firefighters responded to the four-alarm blaze, the New York City Fire Department said.

Pictures posted on Twitter by the fire department showed two fire trucks with aerial ladders extended to the upper floors of a brick building bathed in flood lights, and firefighters on the fire escape outside what appeared to be a second- or third-floor unit.

The number of civilian fire fatalities in New York City last year dropped to 48, the fewest in the 100 years since record-keeping began, the FDNY said on its website. Data on 2017 fire fatalities was not immediately available.

The cause was under investigation.