This story was last updated at 6:29 p.m. on Monday.
Firefighters were able to get the three-alarm blaze at a private dwelling place in the Bronx “under control” by about 1:30 p.m. today, according to the FDNY.
#FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief John Sarrocco provides an update from the scene of a 3-alarm fire at 843 Freeman Street in the Bronx. Read more: https://t.co/yRzD1YAAd6 pic.twitter.com/B4ZeHHej3x
— FDNY (@FDNY) January 30, 2023
The department received a report of a basement fire at 843 Freeman St. in the Crotona Park East neighborhood at 11:02 a.m., FDNY Press Secretary Amanda Farinacci Gonzalez told the Bronx Times.
The blaze, Farinacci Gonzalez said, included “heavy fire conditions with extension to a neighboring property.” She also told the Bronx Times this morning that approximately 33 units and 138 fire and EMS personnel responded to the scene, but in a statement to media outside of the house Monday, Deputy Assistant Chief John Sarrocco said 25 units and 135 personnel responded.
Sarrocco confirmed that there had only been one reported injury early this afternoon — a firefighter who was transported to Jacobi Hospital with “minor” burns. Four people lived in that building, the chief said.
“Units did a great job keeping fire out of both exposures, on both the left and right side of the building,” Sarrocco told the media Monday afternoon.
The New York City Emergency Management tweeted this morning that people in the fire’s surrounding area in Crotona Park East — near the Freeman Street and Prospect Avenue intersection — should expect smoke and traffic delays. The agency advised that people in the area close their windows to avoid the smoke.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Today’s blaze is the third major fire reported in the Bronx in the past five days.
A four-alarm blaze at a Wakefield apartment last Thursday injured four and had displaced more than 60 by Friday, and a two-alarm fire killed one person and injured two others in Soundview on Sunday.
This month’s fires are also a stark reminder of the city’s deadliest blaze in three decades, which broke out in Fordham Heights last January. That fire, at the Twin Parks North West apartment building, killed 17 people, including eight children.
— Lloyd Mitchell contributed to this report
Reach Camille Botello at cbotello@schnepsmedia.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
