Resident Arrested for Starting Inwood Blaze That Killed Three People
Prosecutors charged 29-year-old Victor Arias with multiple counts of criminally negligent homicide in connection with a fire that killed three people after they claim he tossed a lit cigarette into discarded cardboard in the building where he lived.
Inwood /
| 13 May 2026 | 05:22
A man has been arrested in connection with a deadly fire in Inwood that killed Yolaine Diaz (left) and Ana Mirtha Lantigua. Victor Arias, 29, reportedly tossed a cigarette into cardboard boxes in the building’s lobby. (
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The fire also killed a 24-year-old man, hospitalized five people in critical condition, and displaced 100 residents. (
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One of the victims is intubated following a fire in her apartment building in Inwood which killed three people, injured 14 and left 100 residents homeless. A GoFundMe to raise money for a mom and her three children who were hurt in the blaze has raised over $50,000. (
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A man has been arrested in connection with a deadly fire that killed three people in Inwood earlier this month, with prosecutors charging him with criminally negligent homicide after he allegedly dropped a cigarette into a stack of cardboard boxes.
A judge granted a request by prosecutors that Victor Arias, 29, be allowed supervised release after being taken into custody on May 11.
The three-alarm fire tore through a six-story building at 209 Dyckman St. in the early hours of May 4, and took the lives of 48-year-old Yolaine Diaz, her 73-year-old mother Ana Mirtha Lantigua, and 24-year-old Lance Garcia.
Diaz was a celebrated editor at People en Español, the Spanish-language edition of People magazine, where she had worked since 2004. Her last byline was on April 28, just days before she was killed by the fire.
Five people, including a mother and her three children, remain hospitalized in critical condition; a GoFundMe to help pay for their medical costs has raised $51,491 out of a desired $60,000.
A total of 14 people were injured by the blaze, with 100 residents displaced from the building and eight apartments destroyed.
According to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Diaz entered the lobby of the building on Dyckman Street—where he lived with family members—at around 12:17 a.m. on May 4, and had sat down a lit a cigarette on a lobby windowsill by around 12:20 a.m.
He then allegedly dropped the cigarette into the aforementioned cardboard boxes, which were in the lobby, at around 12:26 a.m. He left the lobby via the building’s single stairway afterwards, prosecutors said.
Camera footage viewed by the authorities reportedly revealed that the boxes began to smoke, and soon burst into flames by 12:36 a.m. By 12:38 a.m., these flames had apparently engulfed the entire lobby, before spreading up all six floors of the building through the stairwell.
Firefighters responding to the scene managed to get the blaze under control by about 3 a.m. At a press conference near the fire, FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore noted that some residents leaving their doors open had supercharged the fire, reiterating a point that she made many times in recent weeks.
“I know it’s a scary situation in a fire. We’re not always thinking straight, but close the door. Make sure all your family members know to do the same,” Bonsignore said.
As for their decision to seek supervised release for Arias, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office cited a few factors: their belief that Arias did not ultimately intend to kill anybody, his close family ties, and the concern that preexisting medical treatment would be interrupted by holding Arias in custody.
Instead, a judge agreed that Arias would surrender his passport and adhere to a 9 p.m curfew. His next court date is June 5.
It has also emerged that the city is suing the owners of 207 Dyckman St., Janjan Realty Corp., for neglecting conditions at the building they own next door at 209 Dyckman St. There are apparently more than 200 code violations at the latter building, around 60 of which are deemed “immediately hazardous.”