Four dead in Queens fire, including child: FDNY

Four people were killed, including a child, in a raging Queens fire Monday afternoon that had people leaping from the building in a desperate effort to escape the blaze, witnesses and the FDNY said.

Two people were rushed to the hospital in critical condition from the scene, a storefront with two residential floors above it on College Point Blvd. near Avery Ave. in Flushing.

“This is a difficult and tragic day,”  FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said at the scene.

The owner of a nearby gas station heard what he described as an explosion and looked across the street to see people leaping from the building.

“Something blew up. The whole roof was on fire. People were jumping from the building. Others were running across the street,” Wadud Mohammad, 59, told The News.

“The Fire Department was here immediately. I saw them take three people out. They weren’t treating them. They were putting them right into the ambulance. I thought they were dead. I was terrified.”

The fire erupted in a third-floor unit shortly before 12:30 p.m. It took firefighters a little over four minutes to respond. “They [found] heavy fire on the scene,” Bonsignore said.

Three people leaped from windows, the FDNY said. EMS medics performed CPR on victims in the street.

Yibo Wang, 28, was returning home from the grocery store when she arrived to find the flames consuming her building.

“There were four people being carried out. One woman was unconscious and on the floor. One of the men being carried out, his head was covered in blood,” said Wang.

One woman was overheard shouting, “No, my baby, my baby! I want to see my baby!” as rescuers attempted to treat her.

At one point, the woman leaped off a gurney and fought her way past medics as she ran back toward the burning building, only for firefighters to drag her away as she screamed, “I want to see my baby!”

Three victims died at the scene, including the child. A fourth victim died after he was taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens. At least five other civilians were hospitalized, with two in critical condition.

Two firefighters fell through a stairway from the first to the second floor that collapsed. They were rescued by fellow firefighters and were in stable condition.

As many as a dozen people were living in the third-floor apartment where the fire started, according to a neighbor.

“The apartment was vacant. Nobody was supposed to be living there. They were squatting,” said the neighbor, 30, who declined to share her name. “They were using one outlet and they had a ton of extension cords connected to it.”

It took some 230 firefighters and EMS personnel about two hours and 15 minutes to bring the four-alarm blaze under control, FDNY officials said.

FDNY Chief of Fire Operations Kevin Woods said the fire was already heavy on all three floors when first responders arrived. Firefighters used a ladder to rescue a victim trapped on the second floor.

The cause is under investigation.

Heavy winds accelerated the blaze.

“The wind definitely impacts firefighter operations,” Woods said. “The fire travels with the wind.”

Six firefighters in total were treated for minor injuries.

With Theodore Parisienne