Pre-arrival video: Watch how quickly Brooklyn apartment building takes off. Four alarms in Prospect Heights. Firefighter hurt by collapse debris.
At the very beginning of the video above, taken by a bystander, there appears to be fire showing out of only one set of windows of a five story apartment building with stores on the ground floor. It isn't very long before the building is well involved. The apartment building at Washington Avenue and St. John's Place was vacant and scheduled for renovation.
One firefighter was injured by bricks that fell during a collapse late in the operation. Video from that mishap is in the WABC-TV video below. More video and details in this story by WCBS-TV and from Bill Schumm at Firegeezer.
A massive fire consumed every inch of the building at 816 Washington Avenue. The building was vacant and under construction, closed except for a store on the first floor.
The blaze grew to four alarms and traveled from building to building down Washington Avenue.
Three buildings down, at St. John’s Place, a section of the fire ravaged wall buckles and crumbled with such force that bricks were sent flying.
Even though firefighters were standing back a full 100 feet, they weren’t back far enough – one brick struck one of New York’s Bravest, breaking the firefighter’s cheekbone.
