Apartment Building

An apartment building caught fire in Brooklyn, killing seven people trapped inside, police said. The victims were believed to be from the same family. More than 150 firefighters tackled the three-alarm blaze that tore through all three of the building's floors and caused the roof to collapse, a police spokeswoman said. The fire started just after 2:30 p.m. near Fort Hamilton Parkway and 70th Street in Bay Ridge, fire department spokesman Joseph Cestari said.

Rescuers searching the rubble of a collapsed apartment building found six bodies Friday, bringing to nine the number killed by what authorities said was a natural gas explosion. The blast Thursday evening in this town 30 miles west of Vienna left the three-story apartment building in ruins. At first, it was unclear how many people were caught inside, but by Friday night, authorities said they had recovered the bodies of all those believed missing. Most of the fallen debris had been removed.

Three people were shot to death in an apartment building in the 800 block of West 43rd Place in South-Central Los Angeles, police said Wednesday. Genaro Hernandez, 42, his cousin, Saul Carrillo, 30, and a 30-year old woman whose identity was not released were found dead shortly after 10:15 p.m. Tuesday by officers responding to reports of gunfire. Two of the victims died of wounds to the torso, the third of gunshots to the torso and head, detectives said.

An arsonist poured gasoline in the hallway of a South-Central Los Angeles apartment building and ignited a blaze early Wednesday that left four people hurt, including a man burned over most of his body, authorities said. The other victims included a 4-year-old girl, her mother and an older woman. Police Lt. Helen Kidder said investigators were looking into whether the fire may have been set as a result of an ongoing "boyfriend-girlfriend dispute." The blaze was reported at 5:54 a.m.

At least 21 people were killed and nearly 20 others were feared dead in the collapse today of most of a six-story apartment building in this southern Italian town. Rescue workers kept digging through concrete rubble, but civil defense officials held out slight hope of finding survivors. "Unfortunately, I don't think there's any hope of finding them alive," the civil protection minister, Giuseppe Zamberletti, told reporters after talking with rescue officials.

Two fires at an apartment building left four families homeless, damaged four units and caused about $120,000 in damage, authorities said. Seven fire engines responded about 7:50 a.m. and extinguished the fire within two hours at the building in the 12400 block of Haster Street. The cause is still under investigation. But on Friday, firefighters extinguished a bedroom fire in the very same unit where Saturday's fire started, Battalion Chief Cameron Phillips said.

A barking dog alerted his family to a fire in their apartment Saturday only to be consumed by the blaze that also damaged three other units, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Fire Authority said. "The dog started barking and alerted the residents that there was a fire," Fire Authority spokeswoman Tabby Cato said. The man who lived there "had five kids in that apartment and got them all out." The family's cat was also killed in the blaze. The fire was reported at 5:20 a.m.

The owners of a now-closed apartment building were fined nearly $3,000 Tuesday after pleading no contest to life-threatening slum violations at the 72-unit complex. Los Angeles Municipal Court Commissioner Barry Kohn also placed Alejandro Camacho and his wife, Tina, on three years probation for the fire, health, building and safety code violations at 2017 Argyle Ave. A convicted slumlord signed the four-story building over to Camacho, 24, and his 30-year-old wife last year, prosecutors said.

A Panorama City man pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he robbed, raped and murdered the new manager of his apartment building. Mark Alan Bradford, 25, entered his plea in Van Nuys Municipal Court before Commissioner Patricia Gorner Schwartz shortly after the district attorney's office charged him with murdering Lynia Kokes, 28. The charge carries allegations of special circumstances for rape, sodomy, burglary, robbery and trying to prevent a witness from testifying, said Deputy Dist.

Fire swept through a large, boarded-up apartment building just southwest of MacArthur Park late Friday, sending flames high into the air and briefly threatening several adjacent buildings. Search-and-rescue teams dashed into the still-flaming two-story Victorian building to search for possible victims, but officials said the building appeared to have been abandoned. More than 60 firefighters were on the scene within three minutes after the blaze was reported at 8:38 p.m.