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2 FDNY FFs injured at 5-alarm apartment building blaze

Firefighters battled the blaze for several hours as it quickly spread between floors and to neighboring structures

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Photo/FDNY

Wes Parnell and John Annese
New York Daily News

NEW YORK — A spectacular multiple-alarm fire roared through a three-story apartment building in Brooklyn on Thursday night, sending flames through windows while residents and neighbors watched in horror.

The blaze broke out just after 6:10 p.m. on the second floor of the building at 244 Montrose Ave., near Bushwick Ave. in East Williamsburg.

The fire quickly spread, burning through the third floor and the roof, and damaging four adjacent apartment buildings.

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“Not again! Again, it’s happening,” screamed one neighbor, Dora Heredia, 33, who lives next door.

She watched as firefighters dumped water on her building to contain the flames — just over a month after she and her family had to flee from a Dec. 7 blaze that burned their home about two blocks away.

“We were just started to get our lives back together, recollecting things, buying new beds and furniture, and now this,” Hereidia said. “It’s haunting.”

She smelled no smoke Thursday night, but a firefighter rushed into the building and ordered everyone to leave.

“It took us ten minutes because we have two kittens. We were trying to get out of the apartment, but we could only find one before we smelled the fire,” she said. “Another fireman came and told us we had to leave immediately, and then we saw the fire.”

FDNY Chief of Department John Sudnik said the fire burned so powerfully that it collapsed the rear wall of the house. Firefighters couldn’t safely battle the flames inside, so they switched to blasting the exterior of the building with hoses.

”These buildings were built in the early 1900s. They’re all wood buildings. They’re very conducive to fire spread,” he said. “Sometimes with these buildings and that much fire, it just gets ahead of us too quickly.”

Three hours after the blaze erupted, two firefighters sustained minor injuries, but FDNY officials had not reports of any other injuries in the blaze. Its cause remains under investigation.

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(c)2021 New York Daily News

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