Firefighters arrived four minutes after receiving the 9-1-1 call, but it was too late.

They found an aspiring firefighter identified as 22-year-old Steven Munoz and 22-year-old Destiny Marmoleojo, unconscious and unresponsive on a top floor apartment in the four-story building, on Fifth Avenue near Lincoln Place.

Munoz was pronounced dead at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, his friend died 12 hours later.

Boris Bangiyev owns a jazz club on the first floor which opened last fall.

“I am sorry for their lost, their family must be devastated,” said the man.

The fire broke out shortly after 2 a.m. and about 100 firefighters and EMS personnel responded.
Fire Officials say it began in the apartment where the victims were found.
Bangiyev says the damage extended to his club, which got an A grade in a health department inspection just hours earlier.

“The whole place is destroyed, it's full of smoke and full of water, huge water damage, the kitchen is destroyed,” said Bangiyev.

This was the second deadly fire in Brooklyn in 30 hours and the third in the city since Monday, in addition to two fires that apparently were set to cover up homicides. There was also a five alarm fire on Staten Island Monday night and a three alarm blaze in the Bronx Tuesday.

The Red Cross says more fires happen when the weather turns icy as more people use unsafe methods to keep warm.

“Since Monday we've responded to 20 fires and we've helped about 80 individuals. We are providing emergency housing, blankets, financial assistance, emotional support, replacement clothes,” said Michael Vulpillieres, spokesman for the American Red Cross.

At a Key Foods, a block from the Park Slope blaze, Firefighter Robert Mina gave away smoke and carbon monoxide detectors with batteries lasting ten years.

“The deal is if I give this to you you've got to go home and install it, ten minutes with a screw gun and the thing is up on your ceiling and it's protecting you. It’s doing no good in a box,” said Robert Mina, of the FDNY.

Every day seven people die in home fires in the United States. 66 people in the city last year. Most in homes that lack working smoke alarms.

Like the FDNY, the Red Cross gives away smoke alarms, and they install them too.
To find out more go to SoundtheAlarm.org.