Seventeen people were hurt – including a 71-year-old woman left fighting for her life – when a fire broke out at an apartment building in Brooklyn early on Monday, officials said.
The blaze erupted around 6:40 a.m. on the fourth floor of the residential building on Penn Street near Harrison Avenue in Williamsburg, the FDNY said.
One person, the elderly woman, was taken to the Brooklyn Hospital Center with life-threatening injuries, officials said. She was in critical condition.
Seventeen people were hurt, one critically, in a two-alarm fire at 265 Penn Street in Williamsburg. Williamsburg NewsThree people were taken to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn with minor injuries, the department said.
Thirteen other victims were treated on scene with non-life-threatening injuries.
“We were met with a large number of patients early on and almost all at the same time,” FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Fred Villani told reporters of the Penn Street blaze. FDNY“We were met with a large number of patients early on and almost all at the same time,” FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Fred Villani told reporters. “Once they were rescued by the firefighters, EMS personnel on the scene had to make rapid decisions on the severity of injuries. One of the patients was critical and was immediately transported to the hospital by Hatzalah volunteers.”
FDNY Deputy Assistant Chiefs Fred Villani (left) and John Sarrocco (right) brief reporters on the blaze at 265 Penn Street. FDNYFDNY Deputy Assistant Chief John Sarrocco described it as a “very arduous process” to remove the injured victims from the building, “while the fire was still active.”
“Many people were taken out of the building via the interior and others were taken out via portable ladders and tower ladders,” Sarrocco said.
The fire reached two alarms, with 25 FDNY units – including 106 fire and EMS members, responding to the scene, officials said.
Five people suffered minor injuries in the early-morning fire at 2277 Third Avenue. Robert MeceaThe blaze was placed under control within about an hour, the FDNY said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Hours earlier, a massive four-alarm blaze ripped through a three-story commercial building on Third Avenue near East 124th Street in East Harlem, the FDNY said.
Four firefighters and one civilian suffered minor injuries in the inferno, officials said.
The fire erupted in an “older building,” which made its “structural stability” a hazard, officials said. Robert MeceaThe FDNY responded to an automatic alarm around 12:30 a.m. and discovered “smoke in the building,” Chief of Fire Operations John Esposito told reporters.
“We eventually had fire on all three floors [and] fire through the roof,” Esposito said. “It was an exterior operation, fire throughout the building.”
The roof partially collapsed into the top floor, Esposito said.
“It’s an older building, which starts to affect the structural stability of the building and makes it dangerous,” Esposito said. “The stairway burnt out makes it very dangerous for our members inside. So we decided to pull everybody out of the building and then conduct exterior operations.”
The FDNY needed to conduct “exterior operations” for safety reasons, officials said. Robert MeceaThirty-nine FDNY units, with 168 fire and EMS personnel, responded to the scene.
The fire was finally placed under control by 6:35 a.m.
The cause remains under investigation.
The two Monday fires came the day after a 13-year-old boy died when flames tore through his apartment in Brooklyn.
Dillon Waldren-Dickson was found gravely injured inside the seven-story building on Snyder Avenue near East 25th Street in East Flatbush following the blaze that broke out on the fifth floor around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, according to the NYPD and FDNY.
He was rushed to the Kings County Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead.
A 50-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man also injured in the fire were taken to the same hospital, where they were listed in stable condition.
