A fire erupted inside a Bronx firehouse early Friday, trapping a handful of firefighters on the second floor, FDNY officials said.
Members of another fire company in the same firehouse on Briggs Ave. near E. 200th St. in Bedford Park had to rescue the trapped members of Engine 79, who escaped the building from a second-floor window, officials said.
Fourteen firefighters suffered minor injuries, with one taken to Jacobi Hospital for observation.
“We had quite the morning,” FDNY Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said outside the firehouse, nicknamed the home of “Da Bronx Bravest.”
The fire erupted on the first floor of the firehouse, which houses Engine Company 79, Ladder Company 37 and Battalion 27, at about 6 a.m., FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito said.
“The house watchman in the firehouse became aware of a fire on the first floor and alerted everybody,” Esposito said during a presser outside the firehouse. “The cause and where it started was under investigation.”
The blaze quickly extended to Engine 79’s firetruck and spread to the first-floor staircase, trapping firefighters upstairs.
“(They) could not get out through the stairway, so they did exactly what we ask everyone to do and sheltered in the front room and closed the door behind them,” Bonsignore said. “That bought them time for another unit to come and help evacuate from the building.”
Members of Ladder Company 56, who are located about a mile away, were called in and used ladders to pull firefighters from the second floor window, Esposito said.
It was not immediately clear how many firefighters were trapped on the second floor when the blaze began.
The three-alarm fire was put out within an hour and a half. More than 160 firefighters and EMS members were called in to put out the flames and lend medical assistance.
Both Engine 79’s firetruck and the building suffered damage, Esposito said.
Esposito and Bonsignore said the department was now in the process of moving the firefighters of Engine 79 to other firehouses until the building damage can be assessed and repaired.
Other nearby firehouses will be covering the area that Engine 79 protected, Bonsignore said.
“We’re going to make sure we have appropriate fire protection for this neighborhood while the firehouse is repaired,” Bonsignore said.
FDNY Fire Marshals have been tasked with trying to determine what started the fire.