Not a lot of information was known on Sunday after the fire tore through a few apartments of the Strand, but over the past two days a lot more has come out.

It was known soon after the fire was extinguished that one man was killed, however there were varying reports about people being found in a stairwell unconscious. The man killed was Daniel McClung, a 27-​year-​old playwright, and in fact was found alive but unconscious in the stairwell. Another man was found unconscious in the stairwell, and it appears he was the husband of McClung, as reported by the New York Times. McClung was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, however was pronounced dead at the hospital. Fortunately, his husband was in a serious, but stable, condition at New York Presbyterian. DNAinfo has more on the newlywed couple.

At the time, we didn’t know what caused the fire, but the fire department has since announced that the fire was caused by a power strip. Apparently the strip had several appliances plugged in and either overloaded or was defective, triggering the blaze.

The fire was a truly unfortunate accident, to say the least, and a devastating loss to the families involved. The worst part of all is that the couple would have survived had they stayed in their apartment, as the building is fireproof, so would have contained the blaze. By trying to escape through the stairwells, they were overcome by smoke, which they would have been much more protected from in their apartment, FDNY Chief of Operations James Esposito told reporters yesterday, DNAinfo reports:

“There is a natural instinct to flee,” […] “[But] 99.9 percent of the time you’re safer in your fireproof apartment. If you do smell some smoke coming underneath your door, put some wet towels down and call the fire department.… You should not self-​evacuate if you are on a floor above the fire. Stay put.”

“They would have survived, absolutely, if they had stayed in their apartment,”