The fire broke out on the third floor of the home on 57th Street just before 8:30 a.m.
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Fire Marshals say there was an illegal e-bike/e-scooter repair shop operating at that location.
Two people were injured and taken to the burn center at Staten Island University Hospital. The FDNY says one victim suffered serious injuries and another was critically injured.
Burnt e-bikes and charred e-scooters could be seen littering the yard amid the rubble, along with the batteries that melted away.
"I'm not doing good. I've been here for 58 years and this is killing me, I don't know what to do," said a tenant named Andrew.
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He said he has lost almost everything and the couple injured in the fire are his friends.
"I kept telling him, the batteries, charge it outside, charge it outside," Andrew said. "I had a metal barrel that he could've put it in. That if it would've went on fire, it would've done nothing, it would've been in the barrel."
Andrew said he doesn't blame them and he believes they didn't mean for the fire to happen.
So far this year 18 people have been killed in a fire sparked by a lithium-ion battery.
"He was working with batteries, he was tampering with these batteries, there's no safe solution when you engage in that type of practice,' said FDNY Chief Fire Marshal Dan Flynn. "This practice when you repair these batteries, when you open up that casing, it's almost inevitable if you're not highly trained that you're gonna have a fire of this nature."
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