FDNY Firefighters Rescue Man from Fatal Apartment Fire

A deadly fire tore through an Upper East Side apartment building Wednesday morning, authorities said.

The blaze broke out in a second floor apartment inside the Second Ave. building near E. 81st St. at about 8:30 a.m. and quickly spread to the third floor of the four-story building, the FDNY said.

Images shared on Citizen.com showed heavy flames shooting out of second floor windows above a fruit and vegetable market as firefighters on tower ladders doused the fire and threw debris from the windows.

“Our first unit arrived within four minutes and was faced with a heavy fire condition,” FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Michael Ajello said. “We stretched lines, raised ladders and performed searches. It took us about an hour and 30 minutes to put this fire under control.”

Elizabeth Kelly was in the shower when she heard a fire alarm go off.

She ran out of the bathroom and found “so much smoke in the bedroom,” she said.

“I literally just started yelling fire out my window,” Kelly, 34, remembered. “I was naked the entire time, I couldn’t even focus. I just found the first clothes I could.”

Residents speculate that an older tenant sparked the blaze while cooking breakfast.

First responders pulled an 83-year-old man out of the building and rushed him to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he died. His name was not immediately released.

A second man was also taken to Lenox Hill Hospital with critical injuries, authorities said.

A firefighter suffered a minor injury.

There are six apartments in the building, the FDNY said.

“One of the (injured) civilians was from the floor where the fire was on,” Ajello said. “The other was from the top floor. When they left the scene, they had life-threatening injuries.”

Ajello said firefighters had to toss a number of items from apartment windows.

“One of our impediments to our fire operation was the fact that there was a large amount of contents in the apartments, which hinders our fire advance and our searches,” he said.

The blaze was out just before 10 a.m. The cause is under investigation.

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