Seven people were injured as a five alarm fire swept through a Bronx supermarket Sunday morning.
FDNY shared on Facebook that the fire was sparked by a lithium-ion battery in an an e-bike.
“This is an extraordinary amount of damage from this single e-bike, said Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said. ” Thanks to the quick work of our members who were here in under four minutes, we have not suffered a loss of life. There is extraordinary damage. This entire building behind me is completely destroyed. The roof is caved in. There is nothing left.”
The fire was reported at 10:41 a.m. and crews were on scene within four minutes.
“We quickly stretched the hoseline into the building and started to extinguish the fire,” FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said. “The amount of fire that is produced by a single battery in just under five minutes, we were unable to get ahead of it. It had spread quickly into the void spaces of the building and took off from there. These buildings are old and the lumber and when you expose that aged lumber, to fire, it quickly spreads throughout the entire building.”
The fire reached five alarms, with FDNY firefighters using tower ladders and ladder pipes, along with hoselines, to battle the smoky blaze.
Officials said five firefighters, one EMS member and one citizen suffered injuries, but they were not considered life-threatening.
“We stopped the fire from spreading to the furniture store but the fire had already spread to the laundromat. It’s really something that we have never seen before as far as a small fire turning into something like this in a matter of a few minutes.”
