That explains the extensive coverage even as people die in fires across this country every day.
"Fire linked to hot plate kills 7 children in Brooklyn" by Nate Schweber and Benjamin Mueller, New York Times March 22, 2015
NEW YORK — Seven children from an Orthodox Jewish family died early Saturday when a fire ripped through their home in Brooklyn, trapping the children — ages 5 to 15 — in their second-floor bedrooms as their mother and a teenage sister clambered outside through windows.
The fire, the deadliest in New York City in eight years, was sparked by a malfunctioning hot plate, authorities said.
Observant Jewish families often use such devices because members are forbidden from lighting a flame on the Sabbath. They can light one or turn on an electric device before the Sabbath begins Friday night and keep it going through the day.
The blaze started on a first-floor kitchen counter at the home in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood populated by many large Orthodox families, and then raced up the stairs to the second floor, where nine family members were in bed.
Witnesses described hearing screams from the mother and her children piercing the cold night.
**************
“It’s a tragedy for this family, it’s a tragedy for this community, it’s a tragedy for our city,” Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro said, calling it the city’s “largest tragedy by fire” in nearly a decade....
A neighbor who gave only her first name, Bonnie, said the mother had married in 1998 and moved to Israel and her husband worked in banking.
She had moved back to Brooklyn to the house where she grew up about two years ago to be closer to her extended family in Midwood, Bonnie, 40, said. The mother’s parents live in New Jersey, she said.
Orthodox Jews do not cook on the Sabbath because doing so requires the lighting of a flame, which is forbidden at that time. But they will often light an oven on Friday before sunset and keep it going through the next day to heat a stew known as cholent or will keep a stovetop flame on covered by a tin sheet called a “blech” in Yiddish and warming, say, a teakettle.
It was not clear whether Nigro, in describing the source of the fire, was referring to an electric hot plate — which would also keep food warm — or a stovetop burner covered by a belch.
They kind of did it to themselves through unsafe fire practices, but you know.... victims all the same.
--more--"
Look, I'm not applauding such a thing by any means. I'm not even criticizing because I recognize for and of whom the paper is being written. Just don't want to read it anymore. I'm tired of the focus, tired of the narrative, and tired of the pri$m. Sorry.
Of course, the whole city is in mourning:
"NYC mourns 7 children killed in fire" by Sharon Otterman, New York Times March 23, 2015
NEW YORK — A family and a city mourned Sunday the heart-wrenching sight of a row of seven child-size coffins as funeral services were held for the victims of the deadliest fire in New York since 2007.
Why did Gaza and Palestinian children just come to mind?
Seven Orthodox Jewish siblings, ranging in age from 5 through 16, were killed in the fire, which tore through their home in Brooklyn just after midnight on Saturday when a hot plate left on overnight in the kitchen to keep food warm for the Sabbath malfunctioned.
The fire left behind a charred shell on Bedford Avenue in the place of the family’s stout brick-and-stucco two-story home, and it also left a neighborhood grieving. Some neighbors said they are reconsidering the hot plate practice.
The mother of the children, Gayle Sassoon, survived, leaping from a second-story window in a shroud of thick smoke, as did her second-oldest daughter, Siporah, 15. The rest of the family’s eight children were trapped by fire in the home’s second-floor bedrooms and could not escape.
Jewish tradition requires that funerals be held as soon as possible after death. Thousands of mourners gathered on streets outside Shomrei Hadas Chapels in Borough Park, Brooklyn, a sanctuary that serves the Orthodox Jewish community.
They overwhelmed the funeral home’s largest chapel, which holds 340 people. To handle the overflow, loudspeakers were set up to broadcast the service to those gathered on the streets.
The father of the children, Gabriel Sassoon, who was attending a spiritual retreat and was not home during the fire, delivered a eulogy, as did other leaders of the Sephardic Jewish community.
“My children were wonderful, they were the best,” Sassoon said, his voice an anguished wail. “I want to ask my children for forgiveness. I did my best and my wife did her best. Please everybody, love your children. It’s the only thing that counts.”
After the service, the funeral procession headed to Kennedy International Airport and the coffins were placed on a flight to Israel, where the family lived until about two years ago. The children, community leaders said, will be buried Monday in Har HaMenuchos cemetery in Jerusalem.
Gayle Sassoon and Siporah sustained burns and smoke inhalation and were in critical condition on Sunday. Sassoon was at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, which has a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for burn victims.
Siporah was at Staten Island University Hospital North. Two cousins arriving to visit Siporah on Sunday afternoon said that Sassoon was on a ventilator and appeared to be in worse condition than her daughter.
Fire officials said that the fire had been sparked by the hot plate on the first floor of the home, and that the flames had raced up an open stairway to where the family slept. There did not appear to be smoke detectors on the first or second floor, the officials said.
Keeping an electric hot plate on or a burner on the stove lit on a low flame is common practice in the Orthodox Jewish community to keep food warm for the Sabbath without violating traditional prohibitions on lighting a flame during the day of rest, which lasts from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.
Maybe all that needs to be rethought.
Killed in the fire at 3371 Bedford Ave. were sisters Eliane, 16; Rivkah, 11; and Sara, 6; and brothers David, 12; Yeshua, 10; Moshe, 8; and Yaakob, 5.
A neighbor, Victor Sedaka, 46, said Sassoon had grown up in Midwood as a moderately religious girl and later became more religious and moved to Israel. There she met her husband, who is also a Sephardic Jew, and with him she had eight children.
The family moved to Brooklyn from Israel about two years ago because Gayle Sassoon wanted to reconnect with her large extended family, he said.
“They were a unit,” Sedaka said.
--more--"
The fire was so hot it melted glaciers and dropped the building into its own footprint.
NDU:
The news item dominated Israeli newscasts, which explains the prolific coverage here as well.
