Three people, including a baby and a 4-year-old boy, were left clinging to life when a fire tore through their Brooklyn apartment building Wednesday morning, FDNY officials said.
The blaze broke out inside a second-floor apartment in the seven-story building on Bay 19th St. near 86th St. in Bath Beach about 6:15 a.m., FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Joe Duggan said.
“A very heavy fire was found on arrival,” Duggan said. “We had trouble finding the fire apartment because of the smoke and high heat. We had multiple victims calling us needing assistance because they were trapped.”
The tenants in the apartment where the fire broke out left their fire-proof door open so the flames quickly spread and smoke filled the hallways and upper floors, Duggan said.
“If you leave the fire door open, you cause all sorts of problems and not the people that are directly involved, but their neighbors,” the chief said. “They’re the ones we had to transport to the hospital.”
A 4-month-old boy, a 4-year-old boy and a 42-year-old man were found overcome by smoke in the third-floor hallway, FDNY officials said.
The children were taken to Maimonides Medical Center in critical condition Wednesday morning. The adult was taken to Coney Island Hospital in critical condition as well.
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An additional seven residents and six firefighters suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene, Duggan said.
The blaze was so intense that firefighters were unable to get into the fire apartment to put it out, the chief said.
“We had to bring a fire hose up the exterior of the building and go in through a window,” he said.
The two-alarm fire was put out in about an hour, officials said. More than 60 firefighters and 20 emergency medical technicians and paramedics responded to the scene.
FDNY fire marshals are trying to determine what sparked the blaze.