Officials said that a fire broke out early Monday morning in a Brooklyn apartment building, injuring 17 people, including a 71-year-old woman who is still fighting for her life.
The fire broke out on the fourth story of the residential structure on Penn Street near Harrison Avenue in Williamsburg around 6:40 a.m., according to the FDNY.
The elderly woman was transported to the Brooklyn Hospital Center with life-threatening injuries, according to authorities.
She was in a critical state.
The department said that three persons were transported to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn with minor injuries.
Thirteen other victims with non-life-threatening injuries were treated on the scene.
“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 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.
The fire was suppressed within one hour, according to the FDNY.
The cause of the fire is being investigated.
Earlier in the day, the FDNY reported that a large four-alarm fire tore through a three-story commercial structure on Third Avenue at East 124th Street in East Harlem.
According to authorities, four firemen and one citizen sustained minor injuries during the fire.
The 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.”
There were 39 FDNY units and 168 fire and EMS personnel at the scene.
At 6:35 a.m., the fire was finally brought under control.
The cause is still being investigated.
The two incidents on Monday occurred the day after a 13-year-old kid was killed in his Brooklyn flat by flames.
According to the NYPD and FDNY, Dillon Waldren-Dickson was discovered severely wounded on the fifth level of the seven-story building on Snyder Avenue near East 25th Street in East Flatbush around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.
He was declared dead at the Kings County Hospital Center after being taken there.
A woman in her 50s and a man in his 21s who were both wounded in the fire were sent to the same hospital, where their conditions were described as stable.