Scaremongering just hit a whole new level underground, with Subivor -- the subway survival kit. The website (after a short video montage of all the ways the subway will ultimately become your tomb) warns straphangers:Dear Subway Commuters, Did you know that there are hundreds of subway related fires that occur each year? Did you know that there are 27,817 structural fires that occur each year, that's an average of 2,318 per month?And there's always......

Yesterday afternoon, a fire broke out at the Gristedes at Henry and Clark Streets in Brooklyn Heights. All shoppers and employees were evacuated and there were no reported injuries. According to Brooklyn Heights Blog, there was an electrical malfunction in the deli section. McBrooklyn found out from a police officer, "what the fire didn't get, the water from the Fire Department did" (the basement is flooded). There's also a large apartment building attached to the......

Almost all of the injuries suffered by tenants in Thursday night's high rise fire on the Lower East Side were preventable and the result of panic and poor decision making by residents. In addition to the 30 firefighters who reported injuries fighting the blaze on Grand St., 16 tenants of the 26 story building were injured--two seriously. FDNY officials say that all of the injuries to the tenants could have been avoided. Roy Holloway was......

Last night, a three-alarm fire broke out on the 3rd floor of a 26-story building at 460 Grand Street. Firefighters issued a mayday call "firefighters became confused and disoriented in the heavy smoke and complex layout" of the apartment where the fire may have started. One resident said her apartment filled with smoke within 5-10 minutes, and the smoke filled the building up to the 26th floor. Two residents trying to escape by elevator were......

Police arrested a man for allegedly starting a fire that disrupted traffic along the Henry Hudson Parkway yesterday. The blaze required 60 firefighters to extinguish. While no one was injured, but the median between the north- and south-bound parkways were blocked for an hour as 12 FDNY units were required to put out the urban wildfire. The suspected arsonist is a homeless man believed to be emotionally disturbed. The fire was noticed as park staff......

Police and firefighters are investigating the cause of death of a man who died late yesterday evening in the Bronx. The two standout theories are that he died because he was on fire or because he may have been shot. The still-unidentified man stumbled in the first floor hallway of the Eastchester Houses on Adee Ave. in the Bronx around 11:30 p.m. Saturday night; he was on fire and collapsed. Responding firefighters declared him dead......

The relative merits of automobiles versus mass transit are frequently debated by New Yorkers, but rarely do the two modes of transport become physically opposed to each other, as they did yesterday in Brooklyn. Service on the N line was suspended for a few hours early yesterday morning, after a car jumped the curb at 63rd St. near the New Utrecht Ave. subway station, traversed the sidewalk, crashed through a chain link fence, and fell......

The Bronx DA's office says an 83-year-old engineer lied about using steel in a building that caught fire and collapsed and left two firefighters dead in 2006. Jose Vargas, who pleaded not guilty, was arraigned in court yesterday. The three-alarm fire broke out at a 99-cent store on Walton Avenue on August 27, 2006; the building's roof and first floor collapsed, killing Lieutenant Howard Carpluk Jr. and firefighter Michael Reilly. Vargas, who signed inspection papers......

Image of firefighters trying to put out overturned fuel tanker fire in Queens from WNBC A two-alarm fire was ignited on the Van Wyck Expressway when a tanker crashed near North Conduit Avenue - and JFK Airport - around noon. The driver could not escape and died in the blaze. The was extinguished by 1:30PM, but WCBS 2 reported, "A sea of foam covered the ramp and surrounding ground area, even catching fire at......

After being fired for speaking to a reporter, a lawyer who had represented a slain firefighter's family in their lawsuit against the city is now suing the widow and her children. Way to keep those bad stereotypes about lawyers going! After the summer's deadly Deutsche Bank fire, where firefighters Robert Beddia, 56, and Joseph Graffagnino, 34, died, their families indicated they would sue for up to $180 million. Which would be a payday for any......

After two fires with fatalities and one with a firefighter injury, the Uniformed Firefighters Association and City Councilman Leroy Comrie expressed outrage over the FDNY's response to Queens fires. They say the new pilot dispatch program is endangering lives. UFA head Steve Cassidy says the fire response time in Queens is 5 minutes, which is the slowest in the city. Plus, the new policy gives too few details - mainly the address, not details like......

Museum Guard, by Atomische at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. in Staten Island, another bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a scaffolding collapse on Grand Concourse and 149th St. in the Bronx. A building slated for destruction on Governors Island will become a lab for the FDNY to examine the dynamics of high-rise fires and how best to defeat them. Fire crews from cities around the......

Yesterday, a two-alarm fire broke out in a Corona home and after firefighters put it out, they found the body of 5-year-old Jason Guallpa, curled up behind a TV. The police later arrested his 24-year-old brother Diego with endangering the welfare of a child. Diego Guallpa was supposed to be baby-sitting his younger brother, but he decided to meet his accountant and file his tax returns. He left little Jason in the home alone (a......

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed $464,600 in fines over two contractors' safety lapses at the Deutsche Bank building. Contractor Bovis Lend Lease, which had been retained by the state government, and its former subcontractor John Galt Corporation had been dismantling the building when a seven-alarm fire, caused by a worker's smoking, broke out last August. Two firefighters died during the blaze, it was revealed pieces of the standpipe (which lets water for firefighters......

Crazy! Gowanus Lounge posted this video of a car on fire in the Greenwood Heights section of Brooklyn. The video shows the FDNY extinguishing the fire, and GL followed up with an eyewitness account from Greenwood Heights resident Aaron Brashear (who's also in the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights). Brashear said when he looked outside, some teenage girls were yelling, "*Oh, sh*t, that's our car*!" He added that another "long time resident swore it......

Yesterday morning, a fire broke out in Fort Greene apartment, where seven family members lived. The NY Post reports three relatives - a father and his two sons - were saved by a "Brooklyn vagrant on a breakfast beer run." Dubbed "SUPERTRAMP" in the headline, Andre Nash had just bought two cans of beer when a boy was asking for help and pointing to the the 11th floor of a building at the Lafayette Gardens......

The sister of the 23-year FDNY veteran who died during the Deutsche Bank building last August is suing city agencies and contractors, citing their "wanton, willful, and reckless conduct" in his death. The Deutsche Bank building had been undergoing a slow dismantling process, and a worker's cigarette likely started the 7-alarm fire. Robert Beddia, 53, (pictured) and Joseph Graffagnino, 34, died on the 14th floor, when they ran out of oxygen (the FDNY tapes are......

How do you get rid of an unwanted fire truck? Simple, put it on Craigslist! That is exactly what the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC) did with an unused 1993 Pierce aerial platform truck they inherited from the Coast Guard when the city-state agency took control over Governors Island in 2003. They got over $75,000 from the East Prospect Fire Company in York County, Pennsylvania near Lancaster. That is a pretty good deal......

After last night's two-alarm fire, most of Hunts Point Market was open for business. However, the offices of Master Purveyors and Desola Provisions were destroyed; Desola's Bill Beskin told NY1 aside from the offices being "completely burned out, "The coolers, all the meat, everything is, we're fine." Still, inspectors are making sure the meat is still okay (Desola supplies to the Stage Deli, Master to Peter Luger's). Over 100 firefighters battled the blaze, and three......

This evening, there was a two-alarm fire at the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. Hunts Point Cooperative Market, the "Largest Food Distribution Center in the World," is where many meat and meat products are processed and distributed in the tri-state area. Over 100 firefighters were on the scene to fight the fire and the main fire has been extinguished. No injuries have been reported yet and the Fire Department does not know the......

A piece in The New York Times today shows that that the residents of 475 Kent are not prepared to go quietly after their recent eviction due to fire safety violations. Even the landlord of the owner of the nearly block-long building near the Navy Yard in Brooklyn wants his tenants back in and is cooperating with them to that end. The City and the Fire Dept. so far have been unyielding. At issue, they......

Some troubling news about yesterday's three-alarm fire at 200 East 72nd Street which left 19 firefighters and 14 resident injured. Apparently the fire alarm system had been undergoing repairs (there were complaints about "multiple false alarms" according to the Sun), which led to chaos. The building is "fireproof," and the FDNY says residents should have just stayed in their apartment, but many tried to leave the building. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer issued a following......

Earlier this morning, a fire started on the ground floor of an apartment building on East 72nd Street and Third Avenue, causing all 34 floor to be evacuated. Two firefighters were seriously hurt, while four others and thirteen civilians suffered minor injuries. The fire was seen in a newsstand and stationery store, according to WNBC. Rusty Pacheco of Grace's Marketplace, located next door, said, "The moment we heard the alarm next door and we saw......

Yesterday, separate fires in Harlem and in the Bronx each claimed a life. The fire in the Bronx occurred at 1317 West Farms Road around 11AM. An elderly man was found in his living room apartment; three other residents treated at a hospital. The FDNY believes the fire was accidental. Around 6AM, the Harlem fire on West 127th Street was reported. A woman was found dead on the top floor of a vacant building and......

Yesterday's fire at Lydig Avenue and White Plains Road in the Bronx ended up being a five-alarm blaze that tore through twelve businesses. Over 200 firefighters from 44 units were on the scene to fight the fire, which started around 8AM; the fifth alarm was called before 10AM, and the fire was under control by 11:39AM. The fire started in a laundromat and spread to other businesses, many of which do not have insurance. The......

A four-alarm fire that destroyed at least 12 businesses in the Bronx has also caused some transit issues. Smoke at the Pelham Parkway 2 station is causing the 2 to bypass all stations between Wakefield-241st and East 180th, bypassing Gun Hill Road, Burke Avenue, Allerton Avenue, Pelham Parkway and Bronx Park East. The MTA says there are shuttle buses between stations and also suggests riders take other buses for the B, D, 4 and 6......

Untitled, by Blaise K at flickr A week after the illegally converted-for-residential use warehouse 475 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg was evacuated by city agencies, due to building violations including an illegal matzoh bakery (and combustible grains being stored in the basement), the building will be padlocked this afternoon at 4PM. There will be a "solemn observance of the shutting of a great arts community," according to a press release we received. More details:Come and......

Last October, a fire was started outside the Engine 34/Ladder 21 firehouse on West 38th Street. The fire was put out, but upon investigation, it turned out the ones who set it were firefighters from different firehouses! A surveillance cameras actually captured Michael Izzo and Richard Capece purchasing the gasoline at a gas station and later splashing the stationhouse's garage door and igniting it, setting off what was described as a fireball. The pair were......

A West Harlem co-op fire eventually required the efforts of 170 firefighters to extinguish as it spread through the West 113th St. building 's second, third, and fourth floors. Despite the fast-moving flames, three sisters and their 34-year-old father were rescued from the fifth floor of the building before they were overcome by smoke. According to the Daily News, 8-year-old Tanesha Spaulding told her father Lenny that she smelled smoke. Opening the front door of......

Satellite map rendering of 475 Kent Avenue from Live Search Maps Over 150 residents of an eleven-story building at Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg were evacuated yesterday after the Fire Department and Buildings Department found a number of violations. The building had been illegally converted to residences and a matzoh factory, complete with two silos of (highly combustible) grain in the basement. A neighboring building was cited as well, and the violations ranged from......