More than 20 firefighters are injured while fighting a four-alarm blaze which tore through six floors of a New York City apartment building
Twenty-one firefighters were hospitalized after fighting a four-alarm fire in building in New York Saturday morning.
The fire broke out at a six-story building in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood at about 7.30am Saturday.
According to the FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Christopher Bilz, when the first FDNY units arrived within four minutes of receiving the call, the fire was considered 'advanced' on the first floor of the building.
FDNY firefighters are seen working to control a four-alarm blaze at an apartment building in NYC Saturday morning in freezing temperatures
'The fire quickly extended to all floors all the way up to the top floor,' Bilz said in the statement, posted on the FDNY's Instagram page.
Video from the fire showed flames as they burst out from the windows of the building which has 39 units in it.
The FDNY said that 200 fire and EMS personnel - 39 units - arrived at the scene to battle the four-alarm fire and get it under control around 10.10am.
There were no civilian injuries, but 21 firefighters were injured, the New York Post reported.
Four firefighters were transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries and 17 others were taken to other hospitals with minor injuries.
The fire was said to have started in an empty apartment on the first floor of the building.
About 200 firefighters and EMS workers responded to the fire, which started at about 7.30am
The fire started on the first floor and quickly moved up all six floors of the building Saturday
Samiya Robinson, 21, who lived in the third floor of the building told the New York Daily News she heard someone yelling 'Fire!' and thought there was a fire in another building, but when she opened her door, she saw smoke in the hallway.
She and her family, as well as her 88-year-old grandmother who lived on the first floor of the building, were able to escape to safety.
Once outside, Robinson said, she saw the first-floor apartment where the fire started was 'just in flames' and noted that 'the fire just destroyed everything in that apartment.'
The building - a Housing Development Fund Corp. co-op run by the city Housing Preservation and Development Department - was in the process of gearing up for a massive renovation when the fire occurred.
Only five families were still living in the building, which was built in 1903, at the time.
'We were supposed to be the last ones they relocated before they renovated,' resident Tawana Deaver, 45, told the newspaper. 'We should have been relocated by now and we wouldn’t have been in there for this.'
Tenants were allowed to go back into the building to quickly grab belongings, but were warned that the building was 'a bit unstable.'
'It’s just a really old building, that’s why the fire went so bad,' Robinson said.
The FDNY posted this picture of the building after the fire. Only a handful of families were living in the building when it went up in flames, as it was in the process of being renovated
The FDNY is still investigating what caused the fire to start.
'In these types of buildings, due to the construction, fire often does travel in the walls, through the floor, and sometimes it will what we call auto-expose with the fire coming out the windows and going into the windows above,' FDNY Chief of Fire Operations Thomas Richardson said.
A source told the New York Daily News that construction in the building may have created openings that allowed the fire spread faster through the walls.
In a statement obtained by CBS New York, New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development spokesperson Jeremy House said: 'We will continue to do everything possible to help the families impacted by this unfortunate event. HPD is facilitating emergency shelter and will support residents until the necessary repairs are made for the tenants to return home.'
FDNY firefighters also responded to a three-alarm fire in Queens Saturday. In that fire, a person was found on the second floor of the building and taken to a local hospital in serious, but stable condition, the FDNY said.
Later in the day, the FDNY Fire Marshals said that the Queens fire had been accidental and started by a space heater.
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