Neighbors of an elderly Bay Ridge woman who died in a fire on Saturday night are outraged at the building management’s disrespectful response to the deadly blaze. Debris from the third-floor apartment fire that killed 66-year-old Edwina Faith Golas on Aug. 26 was left on the sidewalk of 94th Street for almost 48 hours after the blaze ripped through the unit.
The pile of furniture and personal items, which the Fire Department had to push out the windows in order to extinguish the fire, became the opposite of an impromptu memorial of the woman’s untimely and painful death, according to one neighbor.
“My concern is that it’s unbelievably disrespectful to her and to the tragedy of it all,” said Mallory McMahon, who has lived in the building since May.
Neighbors described Golas as kind, funny, talkative, independent, and honest. She lived alone but was cared for by a rotating group of home health aides as she battled cancer. She had previously worked as a flight attendant for British Airways, according to neighbors.
The fire department announced via Twitter on Sunday that the fire was accidental, caused by a “careless discard of smoking materials.” Neighbors confirmed that Golas smoked cigarettes.
The debris from her apartment included furniture, a charred foam mattress, a stuffed animal, and other personal items, photos, and documents. June VonGizycki, a fourth-floor resident who has lived in the building for 29 years and also heads the building’s co-op board, said that she learned on Monday from the building management that Golas had lived in the apartment for her entire life, which accounted for the large amount of debris.
McMahon said that when the fire department came back on Sunday to re-inspect the scene, a fire marshal told her it was not the department’s responsibility to clean up the scene, and that the building management had to do it. But when she asked the building superintendent later that day when he was planning to remove the debris from the sidewalk, she said he told her the debris had to stay put until the Fire Department came back and looked at the apartment yet again.
Another resident said that regardless of who was responsible for the cleanup, it should have been done sooner.
“It should have been cleaned up the next morning, for sure. There was a lot to do,” said April Monahan, a third-floor resident who has lived in the building for five years and checked in on Golas daily for the past six months. “I wish it was handled in a different way. Somewhere along the line it should’ve been delegated and definitely not sit there for two days.”
The superintendent could not be reached for comment by press time.
McMahon, who lives on the sixth floor, also said that she was concerned that the smoke detector the building provided did not go off in her apartment, and that most detectors in the building never went off either, according to her neighbors. McMahon evacuated after she noticed hazy smoke filling her bedroom, she said.
The building is mostly fire-proof, because its heavy steel doors and cinderblock hallways help contain fires, VonGizycki said, and that may be one reason why McMahon’s smoke alarm didn’t go off, according to the fire department.
Smoke still travels throughout fireproof buildings, said fire department spokesperson Jim Long, but it may take longer to get around and build up to a level that will trigger alarms. He said smoke detectors are meant to alert occupants to a fire in their unit rather than detect fires elsewhere in the building.
“Smoke detectors are for your occupancy and your specific safety,” Long said.
