A fire tore through a fourth-floor apartment at 1516 Beach Avenue in Parkchester late Saturday night, sending flames shooting from the building and drawing a massive response from the FDNY. Two people suffered minor injuries but refused medical attention, and the cause of the blaze remains under investigation.
Fire crews responded to the five-story building around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, according to News12, which reported that the blaze broke out in a unit on the fourth floor. The response was substantial: 21 units and 79 fire and EMS personnel were dispatched to battle the flames, the outlet reported.
Firefighters managed to bring the fire under control by about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, roughly an hour after crews first arrived on scene. The two people hurt in the fire sustained only minor injuries and declined medical attention, per the station's report. Investigators have not yet determined what sparked the blaze.
A Prewar Rental Building in the Heart of Parkchester
The building at 1516 Beach Avenue is a rental property built in 1927, with five stories and 36 units, according to a StreetEasy listing for the address. Parkchester, a sprawling residential complex in the East Bronx, is home to dozens of similar prewar apartment buildings packed with tenants.
Not the Neighborhood's First Close Call This Year
Saturday's fire is the latest in a string of apartment blazes to hit the Parkchester area. A separate fire at 1940 East Tremont Avenue injured four people after crews responded just after 8 p.m. on a Thursday, battling flames on the seventh floor of that eight-story building, the same outlet reported. That fire was brought under control in just under 20 minutes.
Another blaze struck an apartment building at 1552 Leland Avenue in Parkchester early on a Saturday morning, according to PIX11. That fire, reported around 3:30 a.m., left one person in critical condition and was not brought under control until roughly 5 a.m.
No official incident report or fire marshal document detailing the Beach Avenue blaze has been made public, and it remains unclear whether residents were displaced or whether the building sustained structural damage. New York City's 311 guidance confirms that the FDNY generates incident reports for fire and emergency responses within city limits, though no such report has yet surfaced for this fire.
