Five people were wounded — including two critically injured children — after a fast-moving kitchen fire overwhelmed a family inside their East Flatbush apartment Monday afternoon, fire officials said.
The fire erupted in the top floor of 201 Linden Blvd. between Rogers and Nostrand avenues at 3:23 pm, and 60 smoke eaters wrestled with the blaze from more than half an hour, eventually quenching it at 4 pm, according to a spokesman for the Fire Department.
Witnesses watched as firefighters carried the two kids down the apartment’s steps and into waiting ambulances.
Two of the victims, both young children, were rushed to Kings County Hospital and Downstate Medical Center suffering smoke inhalation, fire officials said. The other injured went to Kings County Hospital, also suffering from smoke inhalation.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene as residents scrambled to get out of the building.
“I just heard everyone running up and down the stairs,” said a resident of the building, who declined to give her name. “I smelled the smoke.”
Another woman said there was little evidence of the fire from the sidewalk, but that she was shocked to witness firefighters with small “unconscious” children.
“I don’t know the family, but I do hope they will be ok,” she said.
