A three-alarm fire broke out at an Upper East Side apartment building Monday night, killing one person, injuring seven others and prompting more than 130 firefighters.
FDNY officials said the fire started inside the six-story building at 526 E. 82nd St. around 7:15 p.m. and quickly spread to nearby apartments, causing a three-alarm fire within 30 minutes. The fire has been upgraded to a fire. Said.
According to fire officials, the inferno started on the fifth floor of the building and spread to the fourth and sixth floors and into the space between the ceiling and roof on the top floor of the building.
Approximately 138 firefighters and paramedics worked to extinguish the fire. An FDNY robotics team was also on scene, using drones to monitor the burning building.
One person died, another was injured, and six firefighters suffered minor injuries and were treated for smoke inhalation, paramedic Deputy Chief Paul Miano said at a news conference at the scene.
The FDNY did not release any information about the people killed, including whether they were residents of the building.
FDNY Chief of Staff Tom Curao said at a news conference that about eight to 10 of the 23 units in the building were affected by the fire.
Firefighters had to tear down an entire wall of the building to ventilate the roof, and were still conducting a second round of searches and sifting through debris late Monday night.
The fire appeared to be mostly under control by 9:15 p.m., as people flooded the streets to watch.
Residents of the apartment building where the fire broke out were sitting on the sidewalk wrapped in blankets as smoke filled the air.
Kate Connors, a 23-year-old retail employee who lives in an apartment on the second floor, rushed outside when the fire broke out. Standing on the sidewalk wearing a red and white emergency blanket, Connors said the fire left her feeling “frightened” and “confused.”
“A cry was heard: “Get out! Get out!” So we opened the door and smelled the smoke and went outside and there was flames coming in through the window…I went outside and I could smell it,” Connors told the Post. “We just started sprinting. We picked up our phones. We just started running.”
Connors has lived in the building since August. She said she spoke with a woman who lives in the apartment where the fire allegedly started, and the woman claimed the cause was faulty electrical wiring in the wall, which the landlord did not address.
Matthew Myers, 32, was also evacuated from his second-floor apartment around 7:30 p.m. He was wrapped in an emergency blanket, shivering from the cold and still appearing to be in shock.
“They started banging and shouting in the hall stairwell. fire! fire! fire! “Myers told the Post.
“First responders arrived. They were so fast. As soon as I got out of the building, they were already there. I'm on the second floor. So it was easy for me. [to evacuate]” he said. “It wasn't crowded, but it was noisy. When I went outside and was actually in the stairway hallway, I could smell the smoke.”
Myers said he saw flames shooting near the top of the building as soon as he stepped outside.
“Flames were coming from outside the window, but I couldn't tell if it was on the top floor or directly below. It wasn't exactly on the roof. fire [was] Come out the window. And it was pretty, pretty scary,” he said.
Many of the building's residents took shelter in the lobby of a nearby building as temperatures dropped overnight. It is unclear if and when many people will be able to return to their homes.
FDNY remains on scene and operations continue.
