One person was in critical condition and seven others were injured early Saturday morning in a fire at the Bronx apartment building.
Firefighters responded shortly after 2:30 a.m. to a reported fire on the second floor of the six-story building with street-level stores on Washington Ave. near E. 185th St. in the Belmont neighborhood. They managed to bring the fire and smoke under control in under an hour, fire officials said.
Seven people were transported to St. Barnabas Hospital with minor injuries, including smoke inhalation, officials said. An eighth victim, a 40-year-old woman, was in critical condition at the same hospital.
Building residents told the Daily News that no fire alarms rang out in the building, despite the mounting flames.
A few residents opted to stay in their apartments while the fire raged and smoke filled the hallways.
Berthel Washington, 57, said she stayed inside her apartment because of a “lung problem.”
“I had to stay next to my oxygen machine, but my house was full of smoke and I just heard noise, breaking walls, water,” she told the Daily News.
Washington recalled being hit by a wave of heat and black smoke when she briefly opened her apartment door.
“There was soot all over the place,” she said, adding that the flames partially blocked her access to the fire escape.
“I would have been all messed up either way,” she said. “It was best for me to stay in the house.”
Several tenants found themselves stuck — either in their smoky apartments or outside, as firefighters dealt with the fire and smoke until “6 or 7 in the morning,” said a teenager who said she escaped down a fire escape with her family. The building’s first floor houses various businesses, including a grocery store and pharmacy.
Despite initial suspicions, the FDNY said the blaze was not sparked by an e-bike lithium-ion battery, which have been blamed on a number of recent fires around the city. Officials said fire marshals are still investigating the cause of the fire.
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