Three people from three generations of the West family, ages 33 to 81, perished.

As has become common over three years, the cause was a battery charging an e-scooter, blocking exits.

So far, 17 of this year’s 93 fire deaths are from such batteries.

Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh calls it “devastating.”

Twenty-seven New Yorkers have died in these fires since 2021, the year after the city legalized e-bikes and similar devices. (No one had ever died in such a fire before.)

We’ve quickly reversed decades of progress. Between 2014 and 2020, the average number of annual civilian fire deaths was 66, including a low of 43 in 2017, the smallest number in a century.

Last year, though, fire deaths, at 102, exceeded 100 for the first time in 19 years, and we’ll likely top 100 deaths this year, too.

This represents a 51% increase, relative to the average before e-bikes became ubiquitous.

As the FDNY notes, e-battery fire deaths exceed electrical fire deaths.