March 7, 2007, a fire engulfed the row house at 1022 Woodycrest Ave in the Bronx, killing 8 children and one woman. The two families affected were those of Moussa Magassa, who lost four children, and Mamadou Soumare, who lost four children and his wife. Carrión worked with business and community leaders to raise over $200,000 for the two families, including support from the New York Yankees who financed the cost of the funeral and the Soumare family's travel arrangements to Mali. When the incident occurred, Mr. Soumare's application for permanent residency was still pending approval, so Carrión worked with other elected officials to secure permission from immigration officials for Mr. Soumare to return to the United States after burying his family in Mali. The fire was caused by a space heater and touched off a fire safety awareness campaign by Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Fire Department. Congestion pricing Carrión was the most vocal outer-borough supporter of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan which would charge drivers a fee to enter Manhattan between the hours of 8am and 6pm in an effort to reduce congestion and minimize the city's air pollution. On June 15, 2007, Carrión held a press conference with Mayor Bloomberg and nearly a dozen other elected officials from the Bronx to announce their support for the plan, though he stressed that proposed improvements to mass transit would need to be clarified before this plan was implemented. Carrión's endorsement is significant because it dispelled the myth that politicians with a large percentage of constituents who commute into Manhattan would be intrinsically against the measure. German military training video controversy In April, 2007 a video filmed in June 2006 surfaced on YouTube depicting a German military training exercise in which a German Army instructor orders a recruit to pretend he is in the Bronx and to fire on a van full of African-Americans who are insulting his mother in the worst way. The soldier fires and yells obscenities in English, whereupon he is instructed to yell louder next time. Upon seeing the video, Carrión demanded an apology from the German government and that appropriate action be taken against the offending officer. Carrión, who had just returned from Germany on a tour to promote tourism to the Bronx, offered to return to educate officials about the borough. He also offered to host a contingent of government and military