NYPD: Man Charged for Queens Fire that Killed Four

A man was arrested for sparking the Queens fire that claimed the lives of four people — including a 3-year-old girl — in an illegally subdivided apartment, cops said Wednesday.

Roman Amatitla, 38, was captured by U.S. marshals on Tuesday at his Queens home and charged with murder, assault, arson and petty larceny in the deadly fire that erupted on March 16, according to law enforcement.

The NYPD identified 50-year-old Chengri Cui and 3-year-old Sihan Yang as two of the four people killed in the Flushing fire. The identities of the remaining two victims, a 61-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man, are being withheld until their families are notified of their deaths.

The city’s medical examiner ruled the four deaths a homicide on March 27. The fire broke out around 12:30 p.m. in a third-floor apartment on Avery Ave. near College Point Blvd. — occupied by as many as a dozen squatters, officials said.

Amatitla lives in Maspeth more than 3 miles from where the fire ignited, cops said.

The owner of a nearby gas station heard what he described as an explosion and looked across the street to see people leaping from the building.

“Something blew up,” Wadud Mohammad, 59, told the Daily News shortly after the fire. “The whole roof was on fire. People were jumping from the building. Others were running across the street.”

One of the men died at a local hospital, while the other three victims died at the scene.

The official cause of the fire remains under investigation.

A man who works near the scene said the building is poorly maintained and left unsecured.

“That building is chaos,” said the 30-year-old worker, who would only identify himself as Eric. “The door is always open, like anyone can just walk in. No one was taking care of that house.”

Department of Buildings records indicate an inspection of the Avery Ave. address in 2020 revealed the owner improperly converted the two-family building into a seven-family building “by creating five additional single-room occupancies and nine additional bedrooms.”

Inspectors found the rooms “with key-locking devices, bed, TV, cooking equipment, refrigerators and food items in rooms,” city records show.

More than 230 firefighters and EMS members fought the fire and treated the injured. Five firefighters, including two who fell through a staircase, were hospitalized with minor injuries.

Seven surviving residents — three women and four men, ranging in age from 33 to 67 — were treated for burns, smoke inhalation and other minor injuries.

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