Over 200 Firefighters Battle Blaze at Bronx Apartment Building

firefighter
FDNY via AP, File
Amy Furr

It took 215 New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firefighters to quell a blaze in a Bronx apartment building on Friday evening.

Reports said one civilian and seven firefighters were injured during the five-alarm fire that started on the sixth floor of the building located on the Grand Concourse by East 172nd Street.

Two of the building’s nine wings went up in flames as residents and neighbors watched from the street below, according to CBS New York.

“We were in our fifth-floor apartment getting ready for bed and we smell smoke and we come out and the roof is on fire,” said resident Felicia Gibbs. “So the apartment above us we see lights going back and forth, they bust the windows already so I’m hoping they don’t have to go down a floor cause that’d be us.”

Reports said seven firefighters were taken to the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital along with one apartment resident who was treated for heavy smoke inhalation.

However, resident Noura Nana said she was able to escape unharmed from her fifth-floor apartment with her husband and two kids when the fire began.

“When I walked out (of my apartment) there was fire and water and smoke. We grabbed our children and I ran down with my kids and husband,” Nana recalled. “I don’t know if my apartment was ruined. I don’t know anything. I might not have anything anymore.”

One woman who lives on the sixth floor of the aparment told reporters that she was unable to see anything as the smoke and flames grew worse.

“We couldn’t even breathe, we couldn’t see anything, it was straight pitch-black,” she said.

On Friday night, the FDNY tweeted a video of the scene which showed first responders and residents standing on the street below the burning apartment building:

“Per #FDNY Fire Marshals: Cause of last night’s 5-alarm fire at 1555 Grand Concourse in the #Bronx was accidental, electrical (hard wired). Smoke alarms present and operational,” the FDNY tweeted on Saturday morning.

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