The fire began just after 11 a.m. at a three-story brick building between West Side Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard. The cause of the fire has not been determined but it is not considered suspicious, said Fire Capt. Andrew Johnson.
Two residents were treated at the scene for anxiety and released, he said, and firefighter Keith Arroyo suffered a knee injury and was being treated at the Jersey City Medical Center, Johnson said.
Residents of the second and third floors returned to their apartments yesterday afternoon. Residents of the building's basement and first floor were left homeless because of heavy fire damage and cannot return until clean-up and repairs are completed, Johnson said.
Yesterday afternoon, first-floor resident Evans Saintcur stood on the sidewalk with his neighbors as firefighters tramped out of the building and a few hardy houseplants poked out of a second-story window.
Saintcur said he saw smoke in the hallway just after 11 a.m.
"First thing I did is pick up the phone and call the fire department," he said.
Some of his neighbors knocked on doors, alerting each other of the fire before running outside, he said.
Steve Farg was asleep when thick smoke filled the hallway outside the second-floor apartment he shares with his mother.
"My mother woke me up and then she took off," he said. "It was a hard way to get up."
