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Families displaced by Sunnyside fire
A displaced couple recounts the moment a fire broke out in their apartment last week. FOX 5 NY's Morgan McKay has the latest.
SUNNYSIDE - The fire at a Sunnyside Queens apartment complex last week displaced more than 400 people last week, and residents were only allowed back inside to retrieve what’s left of their belongings a few days ago.
"Because you don't think about starting from scratch," Chris DelGatto explained.
DelGatto and his fiancé Vivienne Gucwa were one of the first to call 911 on December 20th after they noticed smoke in their apartment.
"As I opened the door, smoke just started filling the top part of our apartment, like immediately, it was wild," Gucwa said. "And I took my phone and I immediately called 911. I was like nope, because in my heart, I was like that's from upstairs."
According to the FDNY, the fire was caused by a contractor illegally using a torch to heat lead paint off a metal closet door frame in a vacant apartment.
And that apartment happened to be above where Gucwa and DelGatto lived.
"I just grabbed my coat, he was in his pajamas, and we didn't have any socks on," Gucwa said. "Nothing, no ID."
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Sunnyside fire investigation
Commissioner Laura Kavanagh says the fire was caused by an unauthorized construction use of a torch.
Without thinking of their possessions, they worked fast to alert and then assist as many of their neighbors as they could, which later caused them to have to go to the hospital for smoke inhalation.
"There are a lot of elderly people and like people that have walkers," Gucwa said.
But Gucwa is a photographer – capturing the beauty of New York City with her lens, and has at least two published books of her work.
However, the water from trying to put out the fire destroyed much of her original work, and the hard drives the pictures were stored on.
"Most of my work was stored on hard drives," Gucwa said. "I also was a traveling photographer for a while and I had some like once-in-a-lifetime experiences, like going to the Arctic with an astronaut. All of that is on hard drives."
And DelGatto is a recording engineer and has also released some music of his own.
However, the water damaged his recording equipment and instruments.
"There’s smoke, there's water," DelGatto said. "I don't know what survived, what didn't survive, but that's also my entire archive of like 20 years’ worth of music."
A GoFundMe has been set up, so the couple can buy housing, clothes, food and other life necessities.
"We don't even know where we're going. Like after this I don't know. I don't know. I feel like I'm still in shock," Gucwa said.
There is also a GoFundMe set-up for all the families impacted by the Sunnyside fire to help them get back on their feet.