Firefighters hurt in fatal NYC blaze

More than 20 firefighters were injured as they battled for nine hours to put out a wind-fueled blaze that killed a woman in a Brooklyn apartment house and forced other residents to flee into the winter chill, officials said Sunday.

Mary Feagin, 64, was found in the rubble of the six-floor Flatbush apartment building Saturday, an FDNY spokesman said. The fire started just before 7 p.m. Saturday, fanned by wind gusts of more than 50 mph.

"The winds pushed fire back into the building and created a blowtorch effect that made it difficult to battle the flames," spokesman Steve Ritea said.

Frank Dwyer, another spokesman, said the blaze offered "a tragic lesson once again about what not to do in a fire: leave the door open behind you."

With the door to the apartment where the fire originated open, Dwyer said, the blaze was aided by the night's extreme winds and arriving units had no chance to extinguish the conflagration before it spread to upper floors and ultimately through the roof.

About 200 firefighters were called to the scene, where they eventually found Feagin dead on the sixth floor, two floors above where the fire started. The firefighters, including two who were pulled from the scorching structure with burns, and four residents suffered minor injuries, fire officials said. None was life-threatening.

Some residents of the 64-apartment building ran into the cold in their feet, braving the wind and chill. A shelter for displaced residents was set up at a nearby school. With AP