Small fire breaks out at Trump Tower in NYC, injuring two

An electrical fire on the roof of Trump Tower is attracting the attention of people online

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published January 8, 2018 11:29AM (EST)

 (Getty/Spencer Platt)
(Getty/Spencer Platt)

A small electrical fire on the roof of Trump Tower is causing many online to laugh at the seemingly perfect metaphor for Donald Trump's presidency.

The truth about that fire, though, is a whole lot less interesting than the jokes to be made about it.

The smoke billowed from the room of Trump Tower without posing any threat to the people inside the building itself, according to ABC News. Roughly 70 firefighters arrived within minutes of the blaze being reported, in order to extinguish it, although a rooftop heating and cooling unit continued to smoke even after they had done so.

There were no serious injuries when trying to put out the fire. One firefighter was hit by debris while performing his duties, and a building engineer suffered from smoke inhalation but declined to receive medical treatment. More problematic than the fire itself was the smoke and steam caused by putting it out, which firefighters said was exacerbated by the 19-degree weather.

This is the second time since the start of the year that a fire at the residence of one of the major 2016 presidential candidates has received unusual attention. Last week a small fire broke out at a facility used by the U. S. Secret Service at the Clintons' private residence in Chappaqua, New York. Although that building was not connected to the Clinton's main residence and was not used by the Clintons to store personal information, this did not stop members of the right-wing blogosphere from glomming onto it to promote their pet conspiracy theories.


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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