FIREFIGHTERS RESPOND TO a fire that appears to have broken out in a 5th floor storage room in a residential building located at 3202 Bainbridge Avenue and East 207th Street in Norwood, The Bronx, on Wednesday night, Jan. 14, 2026. Video by Síle Moloney

A fire that it appears broke out in a storage room containing dozens of boxes of paper tenant files in a 6-story, residential building in the Norwood section of The Bronx on Wednesday, Jan. 14, has been extinguished but fire marshals are still investigating the cause, FDNY officials said.

 

An FDNY spokesperson said the department received a call at 10.04 p.m. on Jan. 14, for a report of a fire on the 5th floor at 3202 Bainbridge Avenue between East 207th Street and Reservoir Oval East. They said it was brought under control at 10.35 p.m. and there were no injuries.

 

Several fire units were observed at the scene, with two ladders extending to the roof, one from Bainbridge Avenue and one from East 207th Street. Water was observed flowing down the stairwell as firefighters exited the building.

Norwood News had followed up with the FDNY to ask about the precise origin and cause of the fire. However, as above, it’s not yet known. We will share any feedback we receive. From speaking to residents on Wednesday night, it seems the fire broke out in the narrow, 5th floor storage room. One resident said the files were the property of the management company.

 

Firefighters had removed several of the boxes from the storage room and they were seen in the hallway, some damaged from smoke and others from water. One box appeared to be blackened / burned potentially from being situated too close to a radiator, though this is just speculation. The boxes appeared to contain mortgage records, checks, and other resident information.

According to one public notice posted in the lobby, the building is owned by 3202 LLC, with an address in Brooklyn, and on another public notice, it is owned by Bainbridge Brothers Realty Corp, which, according to a Google search, has an address of 280 East 204th Street in the Norwood section of The Bronx.

 

According to Acris, the City’s public record system, a document described as an “assignment of leases and rents” was agreed and dated Jan. 9, 2026, between the property owner and assignor, 3202 LLC, and the assignee, Customers Bank, with an address in Malvern, PA. The mortgage amount was listed as approximately $5.8 million.

No contact number was listed in the public notice board for the owner. The super, meanwhile, was listed as having an address at nearby Perry Avenue, also in Norwood. We reached out to the super to ask if, at any stage, he had been asked by the FDNY or any other party to remove the paper files from the building.

 

We asked this as we are aware the FDNY recommends not keeping stacks of paper at least in basements of buildings for fire safety reasons.

We will share any feedback we receive on our request. We also asked for a contact number for the management company/owner to ask for their comment. Some FDNY officials were overheard saying they believed there was a basement in the building and appeared to be going to check it out.

 

One female resident standing at the door of her apartment on Wednesday night told us she could see a bit better into the hallway and was happy to know that the lights were still working even though the hallway was flooded. She said as far as she knew nobody was hurt.

Other residents seen returning to their apartments or standing around downstairs said they were ok but did not wish to comment further. When asked if she could share her experience of the fire, the female resident said of the firefighters, “They knocked on my door. I heard them in the hallway and I opened my door.”

 

Asked if she hadn’t smelled the smoke prior to that, she said she had not until she opened the door. Asked if there was a lot of smoke, she said she didn’t see the smoke; she just smelled it. We asked if she had to evacuate and she said she did not and was just advised to go back inside her apartment and close the door.

We asked if she had seen any fire flames and she said, “No, thank God.” She added, “This is really out of the ordinary, what’s happening in the file room. I mean who would set records on fire? I don’t know how this happened but I’m glad the fire department made it here.”