21 injured in early morning Queens blaze: FDNY

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 laundromat on the first floor and sending tenants who lived upstairs onto the street.

Of nearly 140 fire fighters called to the scene, at least 19 suffered minor injures, an FDNY spokesman said, adding that seventeen were taken to area hospitals. Two civilians were hospitalized with more serious injuries that were not expected to be life-threatening, the spokesman said.

The fire was under control by 6 a.m., the FDNY said. An investigation into what caused the blaze was ongoing.