10 people hurt after fire rips through Freeport apartment building, authorities say

Ten people were hospitalized, including one who was in critical condition, and many others were displaced after a fire broke out at a Freeport apartment building early Thursday, Nassau County Chief Fire Marshal Michael F. Uttaro said.

The Freeport Fire Department responded to a 911 call reporting smoke from a three-story Jay Street apartment building around 5:47 a.m., police said. 

Upon arrival, firefighters received reports of people trapped, authorities said. An estimated 50 to 65 people live in the 14 units in the building, Uttaro said.

The 10 who were injured, including three children, were transported to hospitals for treatment of smoke inhalation and burns. They had to be rescued from the building, authorities said. One person was in critical condition and two were in serious condition, authorities said.

“A great rescue was made,” Uttaro said. No firefighters were injured, he said.

Friday morning, Jay Street had reopened to traffic and windows in the affected apartments had been boarded up.

At 9:30 a.m. a group of residents stood across the street, on Grand Avenue, waiting to hear if they could access their apartments.

About an hour later, residents said they were given the go-ahead by fire investigators at the scene to enter their apartments, one by one.

Eunice Ellis, who has lived in the building for about 35 years, said she had left her top-floor apartment early Thursday with just the clothes on her back.

She and her adult son stayed Thursday with her sister, who lives nearby.

Ellis, who is retired, said she was grateful everyone left the building safely but was eager to go back to her apartment and resume her usual routine. “You’re used to your own place,” she said. Relatives "don’t mind you being there, but it’s not the same thing.”

On Thursday, about 100 firefighters, including mutual aid from the Merrick, Roosevelt, Uniondale, Baldwin, Hempstead, South Hempstead and Rockville Centre fire departments, brought the blaze under control within an hour.

Freeport Fire Chief Anthony Sotira said the staircase from the basement is the main stairway in the building, allowing smoke to fill the hallways. Escape ladders were the only means of getting out.

No smoke alarms were heard or located in the building, Uttaro said. 

He said residents reported some smoke detectors going off, but others did not. There were no working smoke detectors in the basement, where the fire occurred.

“There has been some observed, not in any type of working condition,” Uttaro said, adding it was unclear if the basement apartment was a legal apartment.

People mainly used word-of-mouth in the apartment building to alert other residents.

Officials have not yet ruled out criminality in the fire, Uttaro said.

The 14 apartments received mostly smoke damage. Residents were not allowed to sleep there Thursday night.

At a news conference Thursday, Sotira said the initial 911 call reported smoke appearing to come from the adjacent Gala Foods Supermarket. When firefighters arrived, they saw people climbing on the fire escapes of the apartment building and fire venting out the front door.

A resident informed them that a man was trapped in a basement apartment, where the fire originated.

Sotira said firefighters had no access to the stairs, so they decided to attack the flames with a hose line as one firefighter went through a window to rescue the trapped man. That man was hospitalized in critical condition, Uttaro said.

After the fire, the three-story building displayed about 10 stripped-out windows on the Grand Avenue side, visible from the street below.

Resident Sam Ortiz, 19, awakened to the sound of a smoke detector beeping and saw smoke coming from below outside his window, he said. He then alerted his parents.

The family had a smoke detector in the apartment, but it did not go off, he said.

He said he tried to exit from the hallway, but the smoke was so thick that his family, including his 11-year-old brother, climbed the escape ladder to the roof and then used another ladder to get to the street.

Ortiz said his father tried to help others escape and was injured when he fell off the ladder. He said his father was taken to a hospital. He has not spoken with him since. He had no time to grab any personal items before escaping, he said.

"It was a shock," he said, wearing a blanket over his shoulders. "Everything was happening so fast."

He and several displaced residents were taken in by the American Red Cross at the Freeport Housing Authority, diagonally across the street from the apartment building.

Newsday's John Valenti contributed to this story.