NYC fire kills at least 5 in building housing Guatemalan immigrants; several others injured

NYC fire in immigrant housing kills at least 5

NEW YORK — Fire engulfed a building housing Guatemalan immigrants in Brooklyn on Saturday, collapsing part of the roof, trapping residents and killing at least five people, authorities said.

Four people in the building were injured, including an infant who was tossed out the window by a woman frantically trying to save them. The infant was in critical condition with a fractured skull after bystanders below failed to catch him, officials and witnesses said. The other child landed on an awning.

At least one adult was hospitalized, and thirteen firefighters were injured, none of them seriously, officials said. The cause of the fire in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood, home to a diverse population of Russians, Hispanics and Chinese, was being investigated.

The fire started around 2:30 a.m. and soon engulfed the three-story building on a busy commercial strip, consuming a ground-floor Japanese restaurant and two apartments on the upper floors.

The stairwell between the floors collapsed, as well as part of the roof, trapping residents, according to fire officials. The blaze was under investigation. Most of the building’s residents were from Guatemala, neighbor Juan Gabriel told The New York Times.

As the fire raged, a woman held a baby boy out a third-floor window. Bars covered the lower half of the window, keeping the woman from climbing out, Gabriel said.

“She was screaming, ‘Help me, help me,’ ” Gabriel said. Moments later, she threw the infant out the window to Gabriel and two other men.

In the darkness, the child fell to the ground, authorities said. She then tossed another child out the window. He landed on the awning below.

It wasn’t clear whether the woman survived the fire.