Three people were killed and over a dozen others were injured after a fast-moving fire engulfed a three-story apartment building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn early Sunday morning, leaving first responders to pull out victims that “looked like barbeque,” neighbors told The Post.
Firefighters rushed to extinguish the three-alarm blaze on 242 Albany Avenue in Brooklyn early Sunday morning at about 4:34 a.m., finding heavy flames had quickly spread across all three floors of the residence, the FDNY said.
Three people, all from the same family, were taken to the hospital with critical injuries. All three were pronounced dead later Sunday.
At least 14 other people were also injured in the massive fire, fire officials said.
“This was a difficult and dangerous operation,” Chief of Fire Operations John Esposito said.
“When you have a heavy fire on multiple floors of a building, it is time-consuming to extinguish. We had to stretch multiple hardlines to each floor. It’s a very dangerous operation for our firefighters.”
“At the same time, while we are trying to extinguish the fire, they’re doing searches on the floor with the heavy fire and above that,” Esposito said.
Mayor Eric Adams remarked early Sunday that it was a “miracle” the fire didn’t spread to either of the buildings next door.
“We’re very fortunate that the damage on both sides was contained,” Adams said. “You do not see it spreading to either side, buildings, which is a miracle.”
Neighbors who awoke in a cloud of heavy smoke said they saw the burnt victims being taken out of the scorched building on stretchers.
Jason Thompson said he awoke in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and saw thick smoke pouring through the bricks into his home.
“I started yelling ‘Get out! Get out!'” Thompson, 44, told The Post. “I have four kids ages four through 18 so I was just focused on getting everybody out.”
While his family made it out safely, Thompson said the last person that firefighters brought out of the destroyed home “looked like barbeque.”
“They were charred. Laying on a stretcher,” he said.
Thompson says he’s known the next-door neighbors — a grandmother beloved by all on the block and her son and grandson — for 40 years.
Thompson and other neighbors identified the deceased as Ms. West, her son Mike and grandson Jamal. The FDNY had not immediately confirmed the names of the victims.
Housing records show the address was home to Albertha West, 81, Michael West, 58, and Jamiyl West, 33.
“She was 85, she just had her birthday. I’ve known her for 40 years. Just lovely people we grew up with their kids and their grandkids. They were like family. Very very sweet people,” he said.
His wife, Veronica Thompson, 39, said she thanked God that he woke up her husband before smoke filled up their home, too, calling the early morning blaze “the most scary thing I’ve ever been in.”
Another neighbor, Joseph Cohen, 42, said it looked like first responders were doing chest compressions on one of the burnt victims.
“The firemen brought the men out burned. I saw them bringing him down to the ambulance. One of them was badly burnt. He looked like an adult man in his thirties maybe. You couldn’t tell. They were doing chest compressions on him,” he said.
One neighbor, a 28-year-old woman who asked to not be named, said the family had suffered several tragic losses in recent years.
“I can’t believe Ms. West is gone! Her son just died of a heart attack and her husband died 4 or 5 years ago. It’s horrible. Her whole lineage is gone,” the neighbor said through tears.
The blaze also left a firefighter with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Firefighters responded to the scene within three minutes and 20 seconds, the FDNY said.
The fire was under control by 6:32 a.m., the FDNY said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
