Dozens displaced after Brooklyn apartment fire

OCEAN HILL, Brooklyn — Dozens of residents in four different Brooklyn buildings no longer have a place to call home after a fire erupted Monday in one of the buildings and then spread.

The fire broke out at 2411 Dean St. just before 10:40 p.m., in the middle of the block of adjacent homes between Mother Gaston Boulevard and Sackman Street. Over the next half hour or so, the one-alarm fire intensified into a four-alarm blaze.

On Tuesday, firefighters were still on the scene as questions about the fire’s origins persist. Displaced residents were also on hand, trying to salvage whatever they could of their damaged homes.

Frederico Pagan was across the street and saw the flames spread.

“It was like an inferno,” he said. “Everything was fire, fire.”

Cedric Terry is another local resident who saw the situation unfold.

“It [spread] fast,” he said about the flames. “Then it started going over here, then it started reaching over there,” he said, pointing at different homes.

As the night went on, the situation got worse and worse, said Mike King. He and his family own one of the four buildings, which he said is their single-family home.

His wife woke him up, King said, as the flames spread to their now-destroyed row house.

“She says, ‘Mike, get up, there’s fire.'” King said. “I say, ‘What do you mean, there’s fire?'”

“We was trapped,” he continued. “So I went to the bedroom and knocked out the screen. And I jumped on that harness right there, and I pulled her out through the window behind me.”

The family had to jump out of their second-story window in order to escape the flames.

According to the FDNY, it took nearly 170 firefighters in 39 firetrucks, hook-and-ladder rigs, and other vehicles to put the fire out over the course of about three hours.

At least 30 people were left without homes after their buildings were destroyed by the flames or the inundation of water needed to put the persistent fire out.

Athena Luna was among the residents displaced by extensive water damage.

“My emotions was everywhere, from sad, to disbelief, to shock,” she said. “Everything you can name in the book, I felt it.”

“It’s sad,” she continued. “All of a sudden, your house is gone.”

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