Winds fuel apartment fire, leaving 7 hurt and more than 200 out in the cold

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    NEW YORK (WCBS/WLNY) — A five-alarm fire broke out early Friday morning in the Bronx, leaving seven people hurt and more than 200 others displaced. Officials said the cold and windy conditions made it more difficult to fight the stubborn flames, which are still not fully out.

“This was a massive fire, and the wind played a major role in the conditions that we are facing,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams told reporters on the scene.

“It’s been a very long and cold morning here in the Bronx,” FDNY Commissioner Ben Tucker added. “This was a very, very large fire, wind-driven, as the mayor said. Very difficult fire for our firefighters to fight under conditions that caused us to have to have lots of relief.”

Firefighters responded around 1:45 a.m. to a six-story apartment building on Wallace Avenue in the Allerton section of the borough. Once crews arrived, they determined the fire was coming from the top floor of the building. Within an hour, it quickly grew to five alarms.

Crews spent hours trying to get the intense flames and smoke under control, but officials said the roof and all the apartments on the top floor were destroyed.

“Initially, we had fire companies inside conducting searches, removing people and attempting to fight the fire. The fire had too much headway, extremely dangerous for our firefighters. We removed them from the building and, you can see behind us, we’re using tower ladders to extinguish the rest of the building, and we’re continuing with that operation,” one fire official said.

Five firefighters and two residents suffered minor injuries, and five of the victims were taken to area hospitals for treatment, according to the FDNY.

“Please pray for your neighbors here in Allerton. We know that these fires are happening far too often across our city, and we will do our very best to make sure that we protect New Yorkers during their time of need,” said Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson.

Bronx residents say building had problems with heat

The city’s Office of Emergency Management directed residents to P.S. 76 on Adee Avenue, where the Red Cross was ready to help those displaced. So far, the organization says it registered 81 families, a total of 202 people.

Residents who lost everything are now trying to figure out what they will do for food and shelter. Many ran out of their apartments in the cold with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

“It was just one place, it was one apartment, it was very small in front of the building. Then out of nowhere, it became a nightmare,” resident Nicole Novoa said. “I don’t even know how to feel right now, it’s just so many different emotions. Thank God I’m alive, honestly, and I’m in one piece.”

Novoa lives on the fourth floor and said there has been little-to-no heat at the apartment building for about three years.

“There’s days that you wake up and there’s no hot water or there’s no heating. I work from home and I work with a coat on, it’s freezing,” she said. “We have a lot of electricity problems and we also don’t have no heating. So a lot of us do have space heaters on, so I’m sure that’s part of the reason that it triggered it.”

The mayor and fire commissioner told reporters they were not aware of the complaints about the heat, but vowed to get answers for the residents.

“We are going to have DOB and other city agencies look into if there’s a chronic condition. Going to look at if there are 311 calls that were made, what follow-up was conducted. And we’re going to find out what the cause of this fire is,” said Adams. “But we will look into if those were some of the concerns.”

The official cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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