Three people are injured after an all-hands fire in East New York early this morning.
The blaze broke out on the top floor of a three-story apartment building at 2349 Pitkin Avenue just before 7am, according to the New York City fire department. Residents evacuated to the street as multiple firefighting units and emergency medical personnel arrived on the scene.
Firefighters battled the fire with two hose lines, and extinguished the flames at 7:30am. All three civilians injured refused medical attention at the scene, according to the FDNY. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
According to city records, the Pitkin Avenue apartment building has racked up dozens of serious violations with the Department of Buildings — a partial vacate order was placed on the property in February after a city inspector found that the basement had allegedly been illegally converted into a fourth unit. Another violation was issued on March 1 when an inspector noted that the boiler in the basement was broken, and wires were exposed.
Last summer, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development ordered landlords to repair broken smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in a second-floor unit — but records indicate that violation has not yet been resolved. The department more recently issued violations regarding a lack of gas and hot water in the third-floor apartment, where the fire began.
