Investigators probing if illegal businesses were being operated in basement of Queens home burned by fire
NEW YORK -- There is new information on a fire that injured 18 children in Queens on Wednesday at what police say is an unlicensed day care.
Investigators think a lithium-ion battery started the fire, and on Thursday the state launched an investigation.
Officials say more than 20 people were hurt in the fire on Wednesday, including a 1-year-old boy.
CBS2 has learned the day care center in the basement was not licensed.
"I use to see children going in and out," neighbor Jasper Cipolla said.
There was outrage on Thursday, after nearly 20 kids who were in the basement of the two-story home suffered smoke inhalation from Wednesday's fast-moving blaze.
"This was not responsible," Cipolla said.
The home on 72nd Drive in Kew Gardens Hills is now boarded up and a full vacate order has been issued. The Department of Buildings says a day care and dental lab were both being operated out of the basement, without proper permits.
"That's terrible," resident Joan Marchese said. "Once in a while I would see children going in there, but I thought she was babysitting. But I never saw that many children. I might have seen three our four, you know, with different parents."
Fire marshals say a lithium-ion battery is what sparked the fire, part of an ongoing issue in the city.
"We are going to see more and more e-bikes.We're going to need more charging stations," Assemblyman Harvey Epstein said.
Epstein has been pushing to legalize basements in New York City to make them safer to live and work.
"There are people, especially lower-income New Yorkers and immigrant New Yorkers, whose only option they have is to live in an illegal basement," Epstein said.
The city says last year more than 1,000 violations for illegal conversions or change of occupancy were recorded -- with the Bronx and Queens having the most.
Back at the Kew Gardens Hills home, two violations were given to the homeowner after the fire, including one for occupancy, and the state Office of Children and Family Services, which regulates day care centers, told CBS2 the day care was not licensed.
However, a father who sends his 2-year-old child to the day care said it doesn't matter.
"She is much better than any other licensed day care," Rabbi Emmanuel said.
CBS2 was told that the 1-year-old boy who was hurt in the fire is now in stable but serious condition.
The state is looking into whether or not the day care and dental lab were operating legally.