Firefighters battle massive NYC blaze that sent one of their own to hospital

Firefighters battled a massive, five-alarm blaze that tore through a Bronx apartment building Sunday and injured five people — including one of their own.

The smoke-eaters fought to get the fire under control for nearly five hours after it ignited on the top floor of a six-story building at 1420 Noble Ave. in Soundview just after 7 p.m., FDNY officials said.

FDNY Chief of Operations John Esposito said firefighters arrived within four minutes of the call and began fighting the inferno from inside the building but the flames caused part of the roof to cave in so they were forced to move the battle outside.

“It turned out to be too much fire. We had partial ceiling and partial roof collapses,” Esposito told reporters at the scene during a 10:30 p.m. press conference. “We withdrew our units. We’re now using five tower ladders to extinguish the fire. The fire is still not under control.”

Four civilians and one firefighter were wounded in the blaze. One civilian and the smoke-eater were taken to the hospital. The others were treated at the scene. All five wounded suffered minor injuries, said Assistant Chief of EMS Fred Villani.

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In total, 44 units with nearly 200 firefighters responded to the smoky scene, which they were able to contain to one section of the building. The crews finally got under control at around 11:30 p.m.

“It’s a tall building and it’s a very big building so trying to get hose lines to the top floor to extinguish the fire … is very difficult, very time consuming and in this case, the fire had a lot of headway and we weren’t able to keep up with it,” Esposito said.

Flames first broke out in the cockloft, the area between the top floor ceiling and the underside of the roof, Esposito said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The building has 79 units and all were evacuated Sunday night. It’s unclear how many residents have been displaced.

The Red Cross had set up a service center at the Bronx River Parkway Community Center for residents impacted by the fire and was assisting them in finding shelter for the night.