The explosion that flattened a Brooklyn apartment building and killed two women inside was ruled an arson after investigators concluded that one of the women poured gasoline on a stairwell and set it ablaze, FDNY sources said Thursday.
Francisca Figueroa, 48, lived on the second floor of the three-story Borough Park building but had been evicted after a nasty landlord-tenant dispute and apparently set the blaze as revenge, sources said.
She doused the stairs with gasoline and the fumes spread throughout the building, exploding as soon as she set the fire, sources said.
Authorities first suspected that it was a natural gas leak that caused the blast, which also killed Ligia Puello, 64, who lived on the third floor, and injured a dozen others.
But after interviewing Figueroa’s relatives and other witnesses, they concluded that it was arson.
“The fire investigators determined that there was a flammable liquid used. It was gasoline,” a department spokesman confirmed.
Fugueroa, authorities said, had also contacted loved ones and family members to say goodbye.
The owner of the Park Slope hair salon Franchezka Unisex and the mother of two teens, Figueroa had been evicted by her landlord and was supposed to have vacated the place two days before the Oct. 3 tragedy.
Neighbors at the time said she had been locked in a bitter feud with her landlord.
“The landlord told me it took a very long time to get Figueroa out . . . There were bad feelings on both sides,” one said shortly after the blast.
She had told relatives she was going to the house to gather up her belongings, but instead set the blaze, leaving her car near the building with her cellphone inside.
Her two children, a 16-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son, were not at home and were uninjured.
Cops discovered Puello, described by neighbors as a sweet, quiet woman who lived alone, unconscious in the stairwell of the building. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Puello’s sister-in-law, Juana Puello, was philosophical about the news.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.