Published January 31. 2021 2:32AM
Graham Rayman and Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News
NEW YORK Plans to renovate a languishing, city-owned Harlem apartment building went up in smoke after a massive fire tore through the property Saturday morning injuring almost two dozen firefighters battling the blaze in the frosty January air.
The flames erupted in an empty first-floor apartment at the West 115th Street building located about a half block from Morningside Park around 7:30 a.m. as temperatures dropped to 20 degrees, officials said.
“I heard someone say ‘Fire! Fire!’ but I’m thinking like maybe it’s another building,” third-floor resident Samiya Robinson told the Daily News. “I opened the front door and it was just like smoking.”
17 firefighters hospitalized battling NYC building blaze in frosty morning air Graham Rayman and Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News
NEW YORK. Seventeen New York City firefighters were hospitalized four with serious injuries battling a fast-moving blaze that tore through a Harlem apartment building under construction Saturday morning, officials said.
The fire erupted on the first floor of the W. 115th Street building located about a half block from Morningside Park around 7:30 a.m. as temperatures dropped to 20 degrees, officials said.
“The fire quickly extended to all floors all the way up to the top floor,” FDNY Chief of Fire Operations Thomas Richardson said. “We wound up going eventually to a fourth alarm assignment.”
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