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Contractor Arrested in Fire That Destroyed West Village Apartment

By Jim Scott | April 15, 2010 6:16pm | Updated on April 16, 2010 8:24am
The destroyed interior of the top floor apartment at 72 Barrow Street.
The destroyed interior of the top floor apartment at 72 Barrow Street.
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DNAinfo/Alexandra Cheney

By Jim Scott

DNAinfo Senior Editor

MANHATTAN — Fire marshals have arrested a contractor accused of causing the blaze that led to the destruction of a West Village apartment, a spokesman for the FDNY said Thursday.

Ajaz Kiani was arrested by fire marshals Thursday and faces charges of reckless endangerment and the illegal use of a torch, according to the FDNY.

Kiani was allegedly using a torch Wednesday near combustible materials on the roof of an apartment building at 72 Barrow Street without any of the proper permits or certificates required by law, the FDNY said.

"There were workers on the roof all day and all of a sudden it sounded like they dropped a bundle of stuff. Someone then yelled 'boss, boss' and ran off the roof and down the stairs," said Savannah Stevenson, who lives in the apartment that caught fire.

Firefighters discovered that the fire originated in a crawl space between the sixth floor and roof of the building, FDNY Chief John Bloy said at the scene Wednesday.

Firefighters were forced to cut out a 10-by-20-foot section of the roof to access and extinguish the fire, Bloy said. Because the crawl space spans several apartments, fire officials sounded a second alarm and evacuated all of the complex’s residents.