An early morning blaze tore through a Sunnyside apartment building on Monday, leaving two residents in critical condition and sending a firefighter to the hospital. Crews moved fast to knock down the second-floor fire, but neighbors and first responders were left shaken by the overnight emergency.
Calls to 911 came in around 2:39 a.m., and firefighters had the blaze under control by about 3:21 a.m., according to incident logs on Citizen. The New York Post reports that two people were taken to Elmhurst Hospital in critical condition and that a firefighter was transported to Cornell with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Investigators had not yet determined a cause, the outlet noted.
Scanner traffic and the incident post on the Citizen app identified the scene as a second-floor apartment fire at 45-08 40th Street and tracked medics treating multiple patients on site. The app's timeline lines up with the early morning dispatch and the time crews reported the fire under control.
FDNY response and damage
According to the New York Post, FDNY and EMS sent roughly 79 personnel to the location and worked to confine the blaze to the unit of origin in the five-story building. Officials described smoke and fire damage concentrated on the second floor while crews ventilated stairwells and checked adjoining units for any spread.
How this fits into a troubling pattern
The Sunnyside fire comes amid several serious residential fires across Queens this year, including a four-alarm blaze in Elmhurst in February that killed one person and injured several others, as reported by NY1, and a fast-moving house fire in East Elmhurst in May that injured multiple firefighters, according to CBS New York. Those incidents have kept local attention fixed on building safety and emergency response readiness.
Fire marshals were expected to examine the Sunnyside scene and determine the fire's origin while city crews secured the building and assessed which units remain safe to occupy. This story will be updated with official statements or new information as it becomes available.
