By Nicholas Williams, Rocco Parascandola, Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — A 3-year-old girl was among the four people killed when a raging fire tore through a Queens building that was under a partial vacate order for being illegally subdivided, officials said Tuesday.
The toddler died along with a man and a 62-year-old woman at the scene after the four-alarm fire broke out about 12:30 p.m. Monday on Avery Ave. near College Point Blvd. in Flushing, officials said.
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A second man died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens, officials said. One of the deceased men was 61 and the other was 57 but it wasn’t immediately clear which one died at the hospital. Investigators are still trying to confirm the deceased victims’ identities, so their ages could change.
The fire erupted inside the building on Avery Ave. and quickly spread to an adjoining corner property on College Point Blvd. It was not immediately clear if the dead girl and the two adults were found in the Avery Ave. address or the adjoining building.
In 2020, the city Department of Buildings put a partial vacate order on the building where the fire broke out, 132-05 Avery Ave., after the city received repeated complaints that the owner had illegally subdivided the three-story property. The partial vacate order was still in effect this week when the blaze broke out.
As many as a dozen people were living in the third-floor apartment where the fire started, a neighbor told the Daily News.
“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.”
A man who works nearby on Avery Ave. said the building that caught fire was in disrepair.
“That building is chaos,” said the worker, who would only identify himself as Eric G. “There’s a lot of garbage, furniture people don’t use and no one picks it up, and there’s a distinct smell that comes from there.”
“The door is always open like anyone can just walk in,” Eric, 30, said. “No one was taking care of that house,”
Building Department records indicate that an inspection of the Avery Ave. address in 2020 revealed the owner improperly converted the two-family building into a seven-family building “by creating five additional single-room occupancies and nine additional bedrooms.”
Inspectors found the rooms “with key locking devices, bed, TV, cooking equipment, refrigerators and food items in rooms,” city records show.
Neighbors said they had repeatedly called 311 about the conditions at the Avery Ave. address and that squatters had taken over.
“It was going to happen sooner or later,” one neighbor, who said he went to Housing Court to complain, said of the conditions in the building. “(Squatters) started using this place for free until they destroyed everything.”
City data shows that 19 complaints were made to 311 about the address between 2023 and 2025. The complaints range from rodent issues to blocked driveways to squatting and the discovery of homeless encampments inside the building.
At least one person complained on Nov. 29 that the building had been abandoned and was in disrepair. In March 2024 someone reported that homeless people were camped out in the building, city data shows.
In the aftermath of the blaze, seven surviving residents — three women and four men ranging in age from 33 to 67 — were treated for burns, smoke inhalation and other minor injuries.
At least three of the victims “jumped from upper floors” as the fire tore through their homes, FDNY Chief of Operations Kevin Woods said at the scene Monday. A fourth victim was trapped on the second floor and had to be rescued by firefighters.
“This is a difficult and tragic day,” FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said at the scene.
When firefighters arrived, the entire building was engulfed in flames. Two firefighters moving from the first floor to the second floor fell through a burning staircase and had to be rescued by other members, he said.
Neighbor Howie Yu watched the firefighters pull people out of the building.
“I saw the firefighters in action. I saw an injured person being taken out. I saw another person being taken out on a stretcher and he didn’t make any movements or speeches, looked like he was unconscious,” Yu said. “It was a bad scene. This is the first time I ever seen a fire and there was a lot of smoke. You couldn’t breathe. The atmosphere was black.”
“The building is old and they didn’t take care of it, they let it run to sh–,” he added.
The owner of a nearby gas station heard what he described as an explosion and looked across the street to see people leaping from the building.
“Something blew up. The whole roof was on fire. People were jumping from the building. Others were running across the street,” Wadud Mohammad, 59, told the Daily News.
“The Fire Department was here immediately. I saw them take three people out. They weren’t treating them. They were putting them right into the ambulance. I thought they were dead. I was terrified.”
One woman was overheard shouting, “No, my baby, my baby! I want to see my baby!” as rescuers attempted to treat her.
At one point, the woman leaped off a gurney and fought her way past medics as she ran back toward the burning building, only for firefighters to drag her away as she screamed, “I want to see my baby!”
More than 230 firefighters and EMS members fought the fire and treated the wounded. Five firefighters, including the two that fell through the staircase, were hospitalized with minor injuries.
The city Department of Buildings placed a full vacate order on both properties late Monday, noting the fire left a partially collapsed roof and collapsed floors inside 132-05 Avery Ave.
The College Point Blvd. address also had massive holes in the roof and the sheetrock. Utility companies were called in to turn off the gas and electricity to both buildings.
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