NYC’s Nearly Catastrophic Daycare Center Fire: Another Sign The System Does Not Care About Working People

Firefighters remain on the scene after rescuing 18 children from a burning Kew Gardens building fire believed to be operating as an illegal daycare center.

By Bob Hennelly

The miraculous rescue of 18 children from an aggressive fire at an illegal daycare center in Queens this week is helping to highlight a national crisis that’s only gotten worse with the closure of 16,000 licensed childcare centers across the country.

The increasing scarcity of safe, quality, and affordable childcare continues to sideline women who are still not in the workforce as the pandemic hits the three-year mark. At the same time, parents who just can’t opt to stay home, scramble for whatever they can find, illegal or not.

"There are nearly 1.2 million extremely qualified women who haven't returned to the workforce," President Biden told the North America's Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference last year. "There's a simple reason: There's no affordable childcare for them."

“This is a labor issue because without childcare, you knock a lot of women out of the labor force and it’s a labor issue because we are paying people ridiculously low wages to do this work with a parking attendant getting a higher wage than a care giver at a childcare center,” said Dr. Harriet Fraad, a family therapist and author. “We are the only developed country that does not have something in place. In France, there is universal public education by three years old.”

 On Jan. 25, FDNY Firefighters from Engine 315 and Ladder 125 out of Queens had no idea when the call came in for a midday residential fire in Kew Gardens that they were responding to a potential mass causality fire that would require the evacuation of an illegal child daycare in the basement.

Once on the scene, firefighters encountered “heavy fire” in the basement “and observed signs of a possible daycare facility – toys, playpens, etc., throughout the home,” according to an FDNY spokesperson. “Firefighters performed a diligent search and located a child in the basement – that was the critical patient” who was taken to Cornell Hospital in serious condition suffering from smoke inhalation.

Eighteen children were rescued.

It took 40 minutes to get the fire under control which firefighters speculate was linked to the presence of a lithium-ion battery from an electric scooter that was in the basement. The fire is under investigation by the FDNY. Back in November, the FDNY testified before the City Council that lithium-ion batteries, used to power the bikes used by delivery workers, had sparked 191 fires that injured 140 people and killing six.

“When you have a fire involving children you think about your own,” said Andy Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, during an interview. “We know that children in a situation like that may not make the best decisions. They may try and hide from a fire and finding them can be very difficult—this is a really tough situation when you don’t even know where they can be---when you lose a child in a fire that haunts your life.”

According to FDNY Lt. James McCarthy, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, there was a potential catastrophic confluence with the presence of the lithium-ion battery in the basement in such close proximity to the off-the-grid childcare center.

“One thing compounds the other,” McCarthy said. “We don’t know there’s a day care center there and it’s in a private dwelling we would never have had any reason to inspect yet that’s where these batteries were stored. The lack of childcare licensing and the number of people they had in there--throw in the batteries—and it creates the situation for a real emergency.”

According to the city’s Department of Buildings their inspectors found that in addition to the daycare there was also a commercial dental lab operating in the basement. “As a result of our inspection, the Department issued violations for construction work that was done in the cellar without DOB work permits, and for occupancy of the cellar contrary to City records,” the DOB wrote in a summation of their response. “Due to the severe extent of the damage from the fire, we issued a Full Vacate Order for the building.”

In a statement, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) said it was “devastated to learn of the injuries suffered by the children at the Queens facility “the program in question is not licensed by OCFS” but the agency was “conducting a thorough review to determine if it was, in fact, operating illegally.”

Under New York State law a childcare license or registration is required when a person or program cares for more than two non-relative children, away from the child’s home, for three or more hours per day on a regular basis.

Council Member James Gennaro (D-Queens) represents the Kew Gardens neighborhood.

“A child was critically injured in what was a completely avoidable tragedy – not only because this daycare facility had no business operating in the first place, but also because, yet again, a dangerous e-scooter was to blame,” wrote Council Member James Gennaro in a statement. “The city rushed to legalize e-bikes and e-scooters in 2020 before my return to the Council without the proper regulations in place…. And just last week, a 63-year-old man was killed, and five others were injured in an East Elmhurst caused by an e-bike. That is completely unacceptable. It is obvious these e-bikes and e-scooters pose a clear and present fire danger. That is why the Council has legislation drafted and under discussion to comprehensively regulate or ban these hazardous vehicles.”

Gennaro continued.  “And let me state most emphatically that I will do everything in my power to crack down on illegal daycare centers in my district….The safety of our children is too precious to accept the risk posed by unlicensed and uninspected facilities. There is a reason the city has building requirements for daycare facilities, and that is to ensure that they are safe.”

“Parents have to often turn to friends, family and neighbors and some may have to turn to unlicensed childcare or other options that may not their first choice, but they are on a waiting list of a childcare provider for months or even years,” said Averi Pakulis, an early childhood and public health policy expert with First Focus on Children, a national advocacy non-profit.

Pakulis continued, “From the First Focus perspective, we strongly believe there needs to be significantly more federal investment in childcare. The pandemic has crystalized so many issues and childcare is one of those issues. Our economy doesn’t operate without childcare and there have been a lot of providers who have closed their doors and a lot of childcare workers who have left the field because they are so incredibly undercompensated.”