The New York City Fire Department says a deadly fire in Crown Heights Thursday night was accidentally sparked by a person smoking in an apartment.
It started just after 10 p.m. inside 451 Kingston Avenue in Crown Heights.
Firefighters found 56-year-old Rupert Smith inside his unit, burned and unresponsive.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Four other people suffered non-life threatening injuries.
NY1 spoke to a man who says the fire started in his apartment.
"I was trying to find out where the fire was coming from, find a fire extinguisher and it got smoky. I couldn't find anything," said Gary Lawson, a tenant. "Whatever the cause was, I don't know if it was electrical, I don't know what it was."
"I was just afraid that my Grandmother could die from this, it's the carbon monoxide in the air. If you inhale too much of it you could die, so I was just afraid of what could happen," said Adonis Forrester, a tenant.
It took crews about 40 minutes to get flames under control.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
This comes on the same day as another deadly fire in the neighborhood, about a mile-and-a-half away.
Gertrude Duncan, 81, was killed after flames broke out at her brownstone early Thursday morning.
Investigators say an overloaded power strip sparked the flames in that case.