A fire tore through a six-story apartment building on Park Hill Avenue in Staten Island on Saturday night, killing one person and injuring another, according to the FDNY. The blaze was reported around 8:08 p.m. on the second floor of the residential building, located between Sobel Court and Roff Street.
The injured person was evaluated at the scene, though their condition was not known as of Saturday night, according to CBS News New York. The identity of the person who died had not been released as of the station's report. No further details on how the fire started have been made public.
A Block With a Troubled Fire History
This is not the first time flames have ripped through the Park Hill Avenue corridor. Just four months earlier, on June 4, a fire broke out on the fourth floor of a seven-story residential building at 140 Park Hill Avenue, injuring a civilian and leaving an FDNY firefighter with serious injuries, as reported by the Staten Island Advance. And back in May 2021, a fire on the fifth floor of a six-story building at 185 Park Hill Avenue — just a few doors from Saturday's scene — injured a civilian and a police officer before firefighters got it under control, according to NY Fire News.
The corridor has also seen heavy fire department activity more broadly across Staten Island this year. In May and June, the FDNY responded to a 2-alarm fire and explosion on May 22 and a 4-alarm fire at a senior housing building on June 9 that required more than 200 fire and EMS personnel, according to the City of New York.
A Neighborhood in the Middle of a Massive Overhaul
Park Hill Avenue sits at the heart of a sprawling, HUD-subsidized apartment complex that changed hands just months ago. In December 2025, a joint venture led by The Arker Companies, L+M Development Partners, and LIHC Investment Group purchased the 1,117-unit Park Hill Apartments complex for $364.7 million following nearly 2,000 resident complaints to the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development over heat and hot water outages, Hoodline previously reported. The sale was positioned as a recapitalization meant to fund repairs across the long-troubled complex.
The area is also home to a large and tightknit community. Park Hill Avenue, along with Sobel Court and Roff Street, anchors what is nationally recognized as “Little Liberia,” housing one of the largest concentrations of Liberian and West African immigrants in the United States, according to academic research published through Columbia University. In July 2025, Mayor Eric Adams selected two blocks on Park Hill Avenue within the 120th Precinct for a citywide public safety and quality-of-life expansion initiative, according to the Office of the Mayor of New York City.
Part of a Citywide Surge in Fire Deaths
Saturday's fatal fire comes as New York City grapples with a sharp rise in fire deaths this year. Between January 1 and mid-May, 46 people died in fires across the city — a surge of more than 60% compared to the 28 fatalities recorded over the same period in 2025, according to FDNY First Deputy Commissioner Daniel Flynn, as reported by CBS News. As of April, nine of the 29 citywide fire fatalities recorded in early 2026 were caused by electrical issues, prompting the FDNY to issue public safety warnings about overloaded outlets and improper extension cord use.
City building codes also require owners of residential buildings with three or more apartments to equip and maintain self-closing and self-latching doors on all apartment and corridor entrances, under NYC Administrative Code § 27-2041.1 and Local Law 63 of 2022. Failures to comply are classified as Class C immediately hazardous violations, according to the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Owners who fail to certify repairs within 14 days of such a violation face emergency city-conducted repairs billed as property liens, along with civil penalties in Housing Court.
