A homeless career criminal was arrested Wednesday for allegedly setting the massive four-alarm weekend blaze that killed one person in a Bronx high-rise – by ripping a stove out of the wall, rupturing the gas line, cops and sources said.
Samuel Calderon, 55, faces multiple charges – murder, manslaughter, assault, burglary, petit larceny, criminal contempt and harassment – in the early Saturday fire that killed Ronald McAllister, 60, a resident of the building within the Boston Secor Houses complex, police said.
Calderon is accused of dismantling a stove inside an apartment, which caused gas to leak out and ultimately sparked the inferno, law enforcement sources said.
McAllister was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
It was not immediately clear whether Calderon knew McAllister – or a 37-year-old man who cops say was also hospitalized in critical condition after the fire ravaged the top floors of the Bivona Street complex.
It was also unclear how Calderon found his way into the apartment.
He initially fled the scene, but was arrested Wednesday when a cop spotted him picking up mail at the building, sources said.
Calderon has more than 25 prior arrests dating back to 1987, police said.
His most recent was on a criminal contempt charge for allegedly violating an order of protection in a domestic case on Nov. 3, 2025, cops said.
The victim in that case was neither the man killed in the fire, nor the gravely injured victim, sources said.
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His last felony arrest was in March of 2022 for a Bronx burglary, and he was also nabbed in 2008 for a Brooklyn burglary, cops said.
Over 230 first responders from 75 units responded to the apartment blaze — that left five more people hospitalized in stable condition — as temperatures dropped to the low teens and below around New York City.
“It was a very, very difficult night, on a very cold night, which caused even more difficulty,” FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore told reporters at the time.
“The men and women of the fire department and all the first responders of our department did a terrific job putting these fires out, couldn’t have thanked them more.”
