Firefighters save historic church as flames rip through Yonkers shops

TO SEE VIDEO: http://pix11.com/2015/10/23/heavy-fire-rips-through-multiple-storefronts-in-yonkers/

POSTED 3:21 AM, OCTOBER 23, 2015, BY CHRIS BRITO AND MONICA MORALES, UPDATED AT 02:14PM, OCTOBER 23, 2015

YONKERS, N.Y. – More than a 100 firefighters battled smoke and flames in Yonkers that threatened to destroy a historic church.

The blaze broke out at a dollar store on 5 South Broadway just before 11 p.m. Thursday then spilled through at least two other commercial storefronts and was upgraded to a 5-alarm fire, according to Yonkers deputy fire chief Thomas Fitzpatrick.

"We did make an aggressive attack upon arrival but then we had to pull out our companies out because we weren't making much headway early in the fire," Fitzpatrick said. "We couldn't find it [and] we couldn't get to it."

Fitzpatrick said his team fought the fire from above the stores, either by climbing the ladders or going on nearby rooftops.

Amid the chaos, they successfully saved the more than 200-year-old St. John's Church from any significant fire damage.

"It's an icon in the city of Yonkers," Fitzpatrick said. "We kept the fire out of that church."

There were no reports of any injuries.