A fierce five-alarm fire ravaged the Boro Park Seder Matzah Bakery in Kensington, Brooklyn, leaving one firefighter and three residents, including a child, injured in its wake. The blaze, which erupted around 2 a.m. at the long-standing bakery located at 1285 36th Street, drew a massive response with over 175 firefighters and EMS personnel on the scene, battling the flames and heavy smoke that consumed the area.
"There was a collapse of the rear portion. It trapped one of our members, but were were quickly able to extricate that member from the scene," said FDNY Assistant Chief Mike Woods, in a statement obtained by ABC7 New York. The firefighter sustained serious injuries, including burns to his hands, and was hospitalized in stable condition. The fire also affected nearby residents, with one adult sustaining a "serious respiratory injury" and the others, another adult, and a child, suffering minor injuries, according to the FDNY updates.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation by FDNY Fire Marshals. The Boro Park Seder Matzah Bakery, with its roots tracing back to 1919 on the Lower East Side before moving to Brooklyn, is known for producing over 600,000 pounds of matzah annually, primarily for the Passover holiday.
As firefighters targeted the heavy fire at the rear of the bakery, "About a half hour into the fire, there was a collapse of the rear portion, and trapped one of our members, but we were quickly able to extricate that member from the scene," Assistant Chief Mike Woods told CBS New York. Footage from Chopper 2 captured the large columns of flame and thick smoke engulfing the bakery as firefighters made efforts to douse the fire, even as it flared back up by 7 a.m., challenging the initially successful attempts to knock it down.
