A resident was hanging out of his window when firefighters arrived at the Beaumont Avenue apartment building just after 11:50 p.m. Thursday.
Heavy black smoke spewed from the third-floor apartment as firefighters battled the blaze.
A 34-year-old man was pulled from the apartment but died at St. Barnabas Hospital.
A 56-year-old resident was overcome by smoke and taken to Jacobi Hospital in stable condition.
Ten residents of the building, including children, were left homeless.
"I went back in my apartment, I looked out the window and heard someone coughing and call for somebody and I could see the smoke," a resident said. "I went outside onto the street, he was hanging out the window. He couldn't breathe, smoke was consuming him. So I kept him by the window. He told me the fire was by the door, I wasn't able to open the door. So, I ran back inside and banged on everyone's window to let them know."
Firefighters isolated a lithium-ion e-bike battery and later confirmed that it was the cause of the fire.
The building superintendent said one of the apartment's residents used an e-scooter to make deliveries.
The superintendent, Ernesto, said he believes the resident charged the lithium-ion battery in his home.
He said he told the resident to no longer store the scooter in the hallway, as it was a fire hazard.
The resident agreed to store the scooter outside but continued to charge the battery in the home.
"Mr. Banks owns a scooter and he parks it across the street," Ernesto said. "He takes the battery out to charge them and I'm 99.9% sure that it was the lithium battery that he had upstairs charging on the counter that caused his own death."
There have been 222 battery-related fires blamed for 88 injuries and at least four deaths this year, adding this as the 5th death this year, compared to 224 battery-related fires with 122 injuries and 14 deaths last year.
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