The e-bike that sparked the ferocious fire that killed an 11-year-old Bronx boy and left the rest of his family clinging to life was gifted to the child’s father by a friend so he could find more work and provide a better life for his family, heartbroken relatives said.
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But the gracious gift proved to be a deadly hazard that killed Zion Maine and left his father, two teen brothers and stepmom critically hurt.
Zion’s dad, Courtney Maine, 37, is in a medically induced coma in the burn ICU at Harlem Hospital.
“He’s a hard-working man,” Justin Wildman, 35, said of his brother. “He works at a car wash right down the block from where they live. He just got the bike from a friend so he could find other work.”
“His friend saw him riding a kid’s bike so he gave him the new bike,” he added. “This is a real tragedy. Why is the city allowing these lithium batteries to be sold?”
The bike was in the kitchen of the victims’ 11th-floor apartment in the Patterson Houses in Mott Haven when its battery exploded about 12:50 a.m. Wednesday, blocking the family’s only exit.
“It was placed in a spot in the kitchen that made it impossible for the residents to leave safely,” FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said.
Firefighters bravely crawled past the fire before hoses reached it to pull the five family members out. Zion was rushed by medics to Jacobi Medical Center, where he died.
Maine along with his two other sons, ages 15 and 16, and his 33-year-old girlfriend were pulled from the flames and remain in critical condition at local hospitals.
“I wish I could have been there when it happened,” Wildman said. “Like I could have done something.”
The family’s pit bull Roscoe also died in the blaze.
Compounding the heartache, Zion’s mother recently died, relatives said.
“Zion’s mother just passed away about a year ago from breast cancer,” said Wildman. “He was already going through a lot. We all were. That’s why Zion was living with his father.”
The father reposted a heartfelt message on Facebook just hours before the fire. “Once you get to a certain point in life,” the post reads, “all you really want is God, family, stability, good health, and peace.”
Neighbors told the Daily News they were shocked by the fire’s speed and ferocity.
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“I was petrified,” said Kristina Diaz, who lives in an apartment next door to the victims’ family.
“My whole apartment was filled up with smoke. My son grabbed the dish rag, wet it, put it on his face, and he tried to run out to go let the neighbors know … He couldn’t make it out. It was horrible. It was pitch black. I couldn’t even see out my peephole no more.”
Now she is mourning for the child who died.
“I’ve been awake since yesterday,” she said. “They were trapped in the apartment. They had the bike in front of the stove — it’s right by the front door — so they couldn’t get out.”
“This was an immensely challenging, fast-evolving situation,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a news conference with the FDNY commissioner at the scene. “Firefighters plunged into the fire and the smoke to rescue those who were trapped.”
Firefighters arrived at the building on Morris Avenue near East 140th Street within four minutes, forced the family’s apartment door and were met by heavy fire. They rescued one victim at the door, who was rushed to the hospital.
“Our firefighters then made an incredibly brave decision to crawl past that uncontrolled burning fire to conduct searches throughout the rest of the apartment,” said FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito. “Several of our firefighters put themselves at great personal risk to do that, to finish those searches and remove the rest of the victims from that apartment before we were able to put water on the fire.”
It took just over an hour for the FDNY to bring the raging blaze under control.
The FDNY has repeatedly warned against the dangers of cheap sub-standard lithium-ion batteries.
“Today is a horrific reminder of the dangers,” Mamdani said Wednesday at a press conference at the scene of the fatal blaze. “We know that lithium-ion battery fires can start quickly and spread incredibly rapidly.”
Lithium-ion battery fires have sparked 401 blazes citywide so far this year, with 74 injuries and six deaths, Bonsignore said. Last year saw 292 such fires with 51 injuries and one death, she said.
Bonsignore urged people to store and charge the batteries outside their home if possible, to never allow them to block doors or windows, never charge them unattended, and to buy certified batteries free of leaks or damage.
“The battery’s cells go into thermal runaway, which makes a small fire turn into a very big fire, very, very quickly,” she said. “These lithium-ion battery fires can kill you, they can kill your family, they can kill your neighbors, and they can kill our first responders. It is all our responsibility to heed the warnings.”
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