1 dead in New Year’s Day apartment fire in Brooklyn

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Friday, January 1, 2016, 5:14 PM

A fire ripped through a top-floor apartment on Jefferson Ave. near Throop Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant about 2:30 p.m. Friday. An FDNY ladder is extended to the top floor where a man was found burned almost beyond recognition.

An “unusual” New Year’s Day blaze in Brooklyn left a 56-year-old man dead and panicked tenants clinging to the ledge screaming for help, officials and witnesses said.

“Help me! Help me!” stranded fourth floor tenant Colin Ford could be heard screaming as firefighters used a tower ladder to pluck him off the side of the Jefferson Ave. building as the 2:30 p.m. fire raged in Bedford Stuyvesant.

“He was standing on the ledge,” resident Marlene Taylor, 66, said, recalling the harrowing scene. “(Firefighters) grabbed him with a cherry picker right before the flames swelled up.”

Ford was ultimately rescued unharmed — yet one in the building was not.

Michael Floyd, 56, was found dead inside a third floor apartment as firefighters engaged in a half-hour struggle to douse the blaze, officials said.

Neighbors said Floyd was visiting his brother Robert Floyd for the holidays when the fire broke out.

FDNY Lieutenant Brendan Flynn (r.) of Engine 235 has a smoke-scarred face after fighting the fire.

Two FDNY chiefs leave the building. The fire was put out within half an hour, an FDNY spokesman said.

A shell-shocked Robert Floyd was too distraught to talk to reporters Friday.

“I can’t talk right now ... it’s not a good time,” he said, tears welling in his eyes.

FDNY Fire Marshals were trying to figure out how the blaze — which is being considered suspicious — started, officials said.

“The fire started between the second and third floor staircase,” FDNY Battalion Chief Edwin Travers told reporters at the scene. “Its was a very heavy fire. It's very unusual.”

Stunned Jefferson Ave. residents recalled smelling smoke before blaring fire alarms sent them scrambling outside in a panic.

"There was smoke filling my apartment," said Allie Smith, 26, who lived next door to the burning building. "It was bad. I couldn't breathe. It filled up the whole place in like three seconds.”

With the smoke pouring into her home, Smith grabbed her two-year-old dog Bijou and raced outside, she said.

"If I stayed up there any longer I don't think I could have made it out," said Smith. "The fire was crazy. There was smoke everywhere. It went for at least three blocks."

Taylor heard Robert Floyd screaming as soon as she smelled smoke.

"He started hollering, ‘There's a fire! There's a fire!' I could hear him from upstairs,” she said.

Taylor ran outside with her son and watched the fire engulf her building.

"I called 911 and I told them my kitchen was on fire," she said. "We watched the smoke pouring out the building."

Taylor said she saw Michael Floyd just before she left to celebrate New Year's.

"I was coming out, he was going in,” said Taylor. "He said, 'Happy New Year if I don't see you.'”

A firefighter suffered a minor injury battling the blaze, officials said.

ttracy@nydailynews.com