20 injured in 3-alarm fire in Flushing

More than 20 people were injured when a three-alarm blaze erupted in a Queens building early Monday morning, officials said.

The fire in the three-story building on 45th Avenue in Flushing broke out just before 3 a.m. and quickly escalated, the FDNY said, engulfing a first-floor laundry and sending tenants who lived upstairs onto the street.

Of nearly 140 firefighters called to the scene, at least 19 suffered minor injures, an FDNY spokesman said. Seventeen were taken to hospitals. Two civilians were hospitalized with more serious injuries, but their injuries were not thought to be life-threatening, the spokesman said.

The fire was under control by 6 a.m., the FDNY said. The cause was being investigated. -- amNewYork