Three people are dead and more than a dozen are injured after a fire erupted in a Crown Heights building Sunday morning, officials said.
The FDNY said three people were critically hurt and removed from the scene of the fire. The NYPD said that those three people were pronounced dead at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County.
Police identified the victims as Albertha West, 81, Michael West, 58, and Jamiyl West, 33.
In all, there are 17 victims, according to the FDNY. Six were injured in the three-story building where the fire started, and the rest suffered minor injuries in adjoining buildings. One firefighter has serious injuries that are not life threatening, the FDNY said.
Firefighters received a call about a fire at Albany Avenue and Park Place just after 4:30 a.m. Sunday.
A "heavy" fire erupted on multiple floors of the building, Chief of Fire Operations John Esposito said at a press conference Sunday morning. The blaze started in the basement of the brownstone and moved quickly, engulfing the building in flames and heavy smoke.
"This fire was extremely powerful," neighbor Abigail Cepeda said. "The whole house was on fire."
Esposito said the fire was very time consuming to extinguish and called it a "very difficult, dangerous fire operation."
"A fire operation like this, when you have heavy fire on multiple floors of a building, is time consuming to extinguish," Esposito said. "We had to stretch multiple hand lines to each floor. Very dangerous operation for our firefighters."
Mayor Eric Adams stopped by the scene of the fire for a few minutes Sunday morning to survey the damage. He said if it was not for the swift response by the FDNY, the fire could have been even worse.
"We're very fortunate. As you look at the flames, that the damage on both sides of the building, you did not see extensive spreading which is really amazing," Adams said.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation as of Sunday morning.