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Nearly 200 Bravest battled a five-alarm blaze that ripped through a dollar store in Queens early Sunday and left two firefighters and a civilian injured, authorities said.

The first started just before 7:30 a.m. at the Jamaica Avenue location of the Dollar Jackpot in Richmond Hill, a one-story building, the FDNY said.

“Our units responded in 3 minutes,” FDNY Chief of Department John Sudnik said of the “heavy fire conditions,” with “fire blowing out the storefront windows.

“Our units made an aggressive push to put the fire out, but there was just too much fire for them to handle,” Sudnik said.

With the threat of potential combustible items in the store making the situation “very dangerous,” the crews were pulled out to a “defensive position” outside the blazing building, he said.

The inferno was upgraded to a five-alarm fire about an hour after the first call, with at least 44 units and 198 firefighters responding.

The flames were finally contained just before 10 a.m., more than two and a half hours after they started. 

“They prevented fire from extending to the adjacent buildings,” Sudnik said of his crews’ operation.

Two firefighters and an unidentified civilian were taken to local hospitals, all with non-life-threatening injuries, the FDNY said. One of the firefighters was treated and released, officials said.

The department’s press office said at one point that a Bravest at the scene suffered “serious life-threatening injuries,” but a spokesman later said this was inaccurate.


  The blaze started just before 7:30 a.m. at the Jamaica Avenue location of the Dollar Jackpot in Richmond Hill, a one-story building. Kevin C. Downs The blaze started just before 7:30 a.m. at the Jamaica Avenue location of the Dollar Jackpot in Richmond Hill, a one-story building. Kevin C. Downs
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