Nearly 200 firefighters, 44 trucks respond to Bronx blaze
A five-alarm fire tore through several Bronx buildings early Wednesday and firefighters spent more than three hours battling the flames, fire officials said.
Nearly 200 firefighters and 44 trucks responded to the flames, which erupted inside a 99-cent store around 5:30 a.m. and quickly spread through three other commercial businesses on University Avenue in Morris Heights, authorities said.
“”This is crazy. This is terrible. We won’t know if we’ll be able to open. … When I got here at 8, it was black, you couldn’t see anything. There was a lot of smoke, everything was blocked,” said Daisy Lopez, who works at the pain management store next to the building.
“The store was closed. The metal gates were down, heavy smoke. We opened the gates and (there was) a large amount of fire in the 99-store, which eventually spread to the pizza place and to the Laundromat,” said FDNY Deputy Chief Joseph Saccente.
“My heart is broken into pieces. I’ve had this business for 11 years and I love what I do,” said Esther Yeboah, owner of Blessed Lady Outlet, which is on the same block.
The fire at the building — which was “not well constructed” and had “severe collapse potential” — had to be battled from the outside, according to Saccente.
“Once you have that amount of fire in the store and you’re resorting to an exterior attack, the challenge is not to make it spread to too many more stores,” he explained, “and the guys actually did a very good job stopping it at the grocery store on the corner and by the restaurant on the other side.”
The flames, which sent three firefighters to North Central Hospital with minor injuries, were extinguished by around 9 a.m., officials said. A watch line was in place for the rest of the day to ensure there were no flare-ups, the FDNY said.
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