Two manhole fires tore through Humboldt Street in Williamsburg just before 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, sending carbon monoxide levels climbing inside a nearby apartment building and triggering a two-alarm response that pulled more than 140 first responders to the scene. By the time crews had the situation under control, dozens of families had been pushed out into the pre-dawn cold.
Scene Escalates Quickly Overnight
The blaze started as two separate manhole fires before officials moved fast to elevate it, according to CBS News New York, which reported on the dramatic overnight scene. FDNY Battalion Chief Barry Legurnic said about 49 apartments were evacuated, amounting to roughly 200 people, per the same outlet's report. A separate account from ABC7 New York put the number even higher, reporting that more than 200 residents were evacuated from a seven-story building at 101 Humboldt Street after initial reports of the carbon monoxide scare.
Two people were taken to the hospital to be evaluated, though officials said their injuries were unrelated to the fire itself, the CBS report noted. As crews worked the scene, three MTA buses were brought in to give evacuated residents somewhere warm to wait, and officials set up a nearby warming center for those displaced by the response.
Cause Still Under Investigation
By around noon, residents were cleared to go back inside, and officials confirmed that power had been restored to the building, per the CBS report. National Grid and Con Edison crews remained on scene working to pin down what sparked the fires in the first place. ABC7 reported separately that authorities were investigating what caused the blaze, including whether weather conditions played any role, though no cause had been confirmed publicly.
Accounts differed on how long it took firefighters to get the situation fully under control. News 12 Brooklyn reported that it took FDNY crews more than five hours to contain the fire before residents were allowed back into 101 Humboldt Street just before noon, while Greenpointers reported a similar Williamsburg manhole fire took FDNY crews about seven hours to contain.
Not the First Scare on This Block
Greenpointers reported that the February 18, 2026, street fire engulfed cars and caused more than 200 residents to flee a residential building. The blaze stemmed from a transformer vault near the Borinquen Plaza Houses at 101 Humboldt Street.
Brooklyn has also seen utility-related emergencies escalate quickly elsewhere in the borough. In Bay Ridge, a gas main rupture at 160 86th Street, reported around 5:45 p.m., seriously injured a National Grid employee who was taken to Lutheran Hospital, according to ABC7's earlier reporting. National Grid said it closed valves at both ends of the impacted section of the main to bring that leak under control.
Gas-related infrastructure failures are not a rare occurrence in New York City. Reported gas leak incidents have climbed steadily nationwide, nearly quadrupling between 2003 and 2018, and New York City alone logged 22,090 such incidents in 2018, more than the next 25 cities combined, according to a study published by ScienceDirect. That broader pattern underscores the strain aging utility infrastructure can place on emergency responders even when, as in Wednesday's case, the precise trigger remains unclear.
