FDNY: Voodoo Sex Candles Caused Fatal Fire in Brooklyn

Wow...was it really that serious Sis....did Rhianna or Beyonce recommend this priest? I guess he's gonna lose some business after this! well...she aint dead so i guess the luck ritual paid off

xoxox

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time and time again we respond to tragedies that could have been so easily prevented," Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said. "This fire had so many of those elements -- candles left on the floor near combustible material, one of the occupants trying to douse the flames before calling 911 and an open door, which allowed fire to spread into the hallway. Hopefully others will learn from this tragedy."

Fire marshals said the fire started around 6:40 p.m., when a woman visited a man in the building and paid him $300 to perform a voodoo ceremony to bring her good luck. The man was known in the neighborhood as a voodoo priest, the AP reported.

A city official told the AP that the ceremony involved the man and woman having sex in a bed surrounded by candles. Those candles set fire to the linens and clothes on the floor, the FDNY said. But instead of calling 911, the man conducting the ceremony tried in vain to douse the flames with water.

Then another person in the apartment opened a window and propped open the front door to in an attempt to vent the smoke, but instead wind gusts of "shot the flames back inside, creating a blowtorch effect as winds whipped in through the open window and pushed fire out into the hallway," according to an FDNY statement.

When the people in the apartment ran out, they left the door open, fire officials said. Flames quickly spread to the fourth, fifth and sixth floors, causing part of the roof and fourth floor to collapse, the FDNY said.

Mary Feagin, 64, who lived on the sixth floor, died in the fire, and at least 20 firefighters and three other people were hurt, the FDNY said.

Nearly 200 firefighters from 44 companies spent almost seven hours bringing the fire under control, the fire department said.

With the AP