Blast Where Happened! 15 Injured in Devastating NYC Fire at Yeshiva Dormitory, 3 Firefighters Among Victims

Fifteen people were hurt – including three firefighters — when a massive Friday morning blaze ripped through a Brooklyn dormitory used to house yeshiva students, according to residents and the FDNY.

The fire broke out minutes before 10:30 a.m. on the second and third floors of the three-story brownstone on Eastern Parkway near New York Avenue in Crown Heights, officials said.

A 21-year-old resident who only gave his first name, Yehuda, 21, said between 12 and 15 Hasidic Jewish men live in the home.

Yehuda was on the first floor sleeping when he heard people screaming, “Call 911!”, “Emergency!”, and “Help, help!” he said.

“I woke up and there was fire and smoke,” the resident added. “I just took my phone, called 911 and ran off. All my stuff is inside.”

“When I came outside, I looked up and [saw] the fire – it was crazy,” he said, showing a photo of bright orange flames shooting up from the building, and heavy smoke.

Yehuda said he witnessed another man desperately trying to escape his second-floor room, even sticking his head through an area of the barred window, apparently meant to accommodate an air conditioner.

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“He was locked in the room. He was trying to breathe but he couldn’t breathe,” he added. “It took the firemen about five minutes to get here and another five minutes to take the guy out.

“When they took him out, he was not breathing. He was looking bad.”

Another man who was on the first floor when the blaze erupted said the trapped resident was stuck inside for 20 minutes.

“The room was full of smoke,” he said. “That’s why he pushed his head out the window.”

The morning blaze left two civilians with serious injuries, while four civilians were treated for non-life-threatening injuries, and six more for minor injuries, officials said.

One firefighter suffered non-life-threatening injuries while fighting the flames, and two were left with minor injuries, according to the FDNY.

The blaze reached two alarms, drawing 25 FDNY units with 106 firefighters and EMS workers to the scene.

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“It’s good that no one died because from what I understand, there are a lot of people in and out of the house,” said Jon Short, 36, a salesman who lives down the block.

The building was gutted by the fire, with a portion of the third-floor roof completely blown off.

Menachem Moshiach, 21, who had lived in the house for a year, was one of the lucky ones – because he stayed the night about a block away at the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.

“I had a big miracle,” he said. “I sleep there every night, but this night I was at the 770 Synagogue all night.”

But Moshiach, who was wrapped in a Red Cross blanket later in the afternoon, said he “lost all [his] stuff” in the inferno.

“I feel very bad for them,” he said of his housemates. “Thanks to God that no one died and I  hope everyone will recover.”

The fire was placed under control by 11:40 a.m., and its cause remains under investigation.

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