One person has died and 9 others were injured in a five-alarm fire in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights this morning.
The fire broke out at approximately 3:30 a.m. on the first floor in the Flatbush Hardware store that sits three floors of apartments located at 267 Flatbush Avenue.
A local merchant died in the fire, NY Daily News reports, when flames blocked his only path of escape. He was forced to jump out of a top floor window and perished.
Bassam Awad, 48, who perished, owned a deli on Flatbush Avenue and Marks Avenue, lived in an apartment on the fourth floor of the building. The building is owned by Awad’s father.
Seven others were injured, including three critically. Those critically injured were a man in his late teens, who suffered from smoke inhalation, a woman in her 90s and a woman in her 60s, who were both taken to New York-Presbytarian Hospital’s Weill Cornell campus with serious burns.
Two of the seven injured were police officers suffering from smoke inhalation.
The fire called 160 firefighters from 39 units across New York City as Flatbush Avenue was closed from Prospect Place to Bergen Street.
Much more at the NY Daily News
Brooklyn *5 Alarm Fire* Box 1241, 267 Flatbush Ave. Photos of FDNY battling a fatal 5 Alarm blaze by @THEMAJESTIRIUM1 pic.twitter.com/4DQjD55j20
— New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) January 21, 2015
Featured image: Joanna Smith
