Investigators: Borough Park explosion possibly caused by tenant swapping out stove

BOROUGH PARK -- Investigators are saying that an explosion in a Brooklyn building may have been caused by a tenant who attempting to swap out a stove before moving.

At least one person is dead and three others were hurt when the Borough Park building exploded Saturday afternoon. After the explosion, fire sent smoke billowing in the air. Investigators say a 60-year-old woman died in the stairwell of the building. She has not yet been identified.

Debris was sent flying into the air injuring a 34-year-old father and his 9 year old child, and a 27-year-old man who were all walking on the sidewalk. They were taken to Methodist Hospital where they are expected to be okay.

More than 100 firefighters responded to the scene around 1 p.m. to the two-alarm fire that followed an explosion in the 4200 block of 13th Avenue in Borough Park. Smoke was very heavy in the area, and a portion of the building involved had collapsed.

The building housed a store on the first floor, and apartments on floors two and three.

A spokeswoman for National Grid said staffers for the utility were on the scene. The company did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the mayor's remarks.

A message left at a possible phone number for the building's owner wasn't immediately returned.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a statement saying the explosion was "the latest in a disturbing trend of incidents." He said he ordered the state's Department of Public Service, the agency that regulates utility companies, to launch an investigation into the cause of the incident.

The building apparently was the latest in New York City to be rocked by a gas explosion in the last few years, though officials say the causes have all been different.

In 2014, eight people were killed and 70 injured when two apartment buildings in East Harlem were leveled by a gas explosion. In March, an apparently illegally tapped gas line caused an explosion that killed two people, injured 19 more and destroyed three buildings. And three construction workers were injured in August when someone lit a match while working on a gas line at a high school in the Bronx.

"The only common thread is natural gas and the dangers of natural gas," said James Leonard, the chief of department for the Fire Department of New York.