Four Dead, Including Child, in Queens Building Fire: FDNY

Kerry Burke, Rocco Parascandola

New York Daily News

(TNS)

Four people were killed, including a child, in a Queens fire Monday afternoon, the FDNY said.

Two people were rushed to the hospital in critical condition from the scene, a storefront with two residential floors above it on College Point Blvd. near Avery Ave. in Flushing.

“This is a difficult and tragic day,”  FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said at the scene.

The fire erupted in a third-floor unit shortly before 12:30 p.m. It took firefighters a little over four minutes to respond. “They find heavy fire on the scene,” Bonsignore said.

Three people leapt from windows, the FDNY said. EMS medics performed CPR on victims in the street.

Yibo Wang, 28, was returning home from the grocery store when she arrived to find the flames consuming her building.

“There were four people being carried out. One woman was unconscious and on the floor. One of the men being carried out, his head was covered in blood,” said Wang. “There was a woman who ran back screaming. She ran back as the firemen were holding her.”

Three victims died at the scene, including the child. A fourth victim died after he was taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens. At least five other civilians were hospitalized, with two in critical condition.

Two firefighters fell through a stairway from the first to the second floor that collapsed. They were rescued by fellow firefighters and are in stable condition.

As many as a dozen people were living in the third-floor apartment where the fire started, according to a neighbor.

“The apartment was vacant. Nobody was supposed to be living there. They were squatting,” said the neighbor, 30, who declined to share her name. “They were using one outlet and they had a ton of extension cords connected to it.”

It took some 230 firefighters and EMS personnel about two hours and 15 minutes to bring the four-alarm blaze under control, FDNY officials said.

FDNY Chief of Fire Operations Kevin Woods said the fire was already heavy on all three floors when first responders arrived. Firefighters used a ladder to rescue a victim trapped on the second floor.

The cause is under investigation.

Heavy winds accelerated the blaze.

“The wind definitely impacts firefighter operations,” Woods said. “The fire travels with the wind.”

Six firefighters in total were treated for minor injuries.

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