Two elderly women were killed in two fatal fires in Brooklyn and Queens that erupted within two hours of each other, FDNY officials said Friday.
The back-to-back blazes came after another person died in a separate Brooklyn fire, this time in Sheepshead Bay, early Thursday morning. The victim in that case remained unidentified on Friday.
Later on Thursday, firefighters were dispatched to a six-story apartment building on 35th St. near 31st Ave. in Astoria after a fire broke out on the third floor just before 11 p.m.
The scene of a fatal fire in an apartment building on 35th St. near 31st Ave. in Astoria, Queens, is pictured the morning after on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
A woman in her 90s and a 61-year-old woman were removed from an apartment and taken to Mount Sinai Queens, where the older woman died. Her name was not immediately disclosed.
The younger woman was listed in critical condition at the hospital, officials said. The fire was put out by 11:30 p.m.
Less than two hours later, early Friday morning, another fire broke out, in a six-story building in Brooklyn, just a block from Prospect Park on Winthrop St. near Flatbush Ave. in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.
Damage and debris are pictured after a fatal fire in an apartment building on Winthrop St. in Brooklyn, New York, on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Firefighters battling the 12:50 a.m. blaze found an 81-year-old woman dead inside a fourth-floor apartment, officials said. The fire was extinguished by 2 a.m.
The woman’s name wasn’t immediately released.
A neighbor said the victim lived in hoarder conditions.
“Apart from that, she was a pleasant person,” said the 65-year-old neighbor, who gave her name as Roselin.
In the first of the three deadly fires, just before 2 a.m. Thursday, flames ignited inside an Ocean Ave. building near Avenue W in Sheepshead Bay, police said.
An unidentified tenant’s lifeless body was discovered in the building as the blaze was contained around 3:43 a.m., according to an FDNY spokesman.
One resident was displaced as a result of the blaze, cops said.
Fire marshals were trying to determine the causes of all three fires.
Damage and debris are pictured after a fatal fire in an apartment building on Winthrop St. in Brooklyn, New York, on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
The trio of fatal fires within a 24-hour period come about a month after the FDNY reported that 13 elderly New Yorkers died during a deadly six-week span between early November and mid-December — a continuing trend FDNY officials called, “very, very concerning.”
Last year’s spike in fire deaths among the city’s senior citizens included a 95-year-old Queens grandmother who died along with her great-granddaughter, an 89-year-old Bronx man who had just beaten cancer, and a 90-year-old sharecropper’s daughter from Georgia who had dedicated her life to teaching.
“(It) is higher than we’ve experienced in the past,” FDNY Chief Fire Marshal Dan Flynn said about the high percentage of elderly fire deaths.
Damage and debris are pictured after a fatal fire in an apartment building on Winthrop St. in Brooklyn, New York, on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
In a PSA posted on social media in November, Flynn urged residents to formulate escape plans with their elderly relatives, friends and neighbors in case of fires.
“Having a clear, simple and practiced escape plan can make all the difference in getting out safely,” Flynn said, recommending families visit FDNYSmart.org for a list of winter weather fire safety tips.
First and foremost, New Yorkers should have working smoke detectors and cleared pathways to exits and fire escapes, the chief said.