A 78-year-old woman died and at least 22 people were injured when a fire spread from a home to two nearby buildings in Flushing, Queens, according to New York City authorities. Firefighters brought the five-alarm blaze under control after a response lasting about three hours.
The Fire Department of New York was alerted shortly before 10 a.m. to 41st Road between College Point Road and Frame Place. By noon, flames had reached two additional buildings, and commanders escalated the response to five alarms. About 270 FDNY and emergency medical personnel were deployed.
Police said the woman was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Her name was not released in the supplied report. At least one other civilian was critically injured, while another person sustained minor injuries.
Most of the remaining injured people were firefighters and emergency medical workers. They were taken to hospitals, but authorities did not immediately provide all their conditions. None of the first responders' injuries was considered life-threatening in the available account. The reported total of 22 included both civilians and emergency personnel.
A witness, Yezen Al-Swaiti, described seeing a firefighter fall from a window but hold onto a rope. He also saw an older woman placed in an ambulance. His observations conveyed the intensity of the response but did not establish the origin or movement of the fire.
Firefighters declared the blaze under control shortly after 1 p.m. Fire marshals then began investigating its cause. Officials had not said where inside the first building the fire started, whether alarms operated, or what allowed flames to spread between structures. No finding of negligence or criminal conduct had been announced.
A five-alarm designation reflects the scale of personnel and equipment required rather than a measure of injury severity. In this case, the escalation followed the fire's expansion across three buildings in a dense residential area and the need to rescue occupants while protecting adjacent property.
The available source did not provide the number of residents displaced or a damage estimate. It also did not identify the critically injured civilian or say whether any of the buildings could be reoccupied. Those questions would depend on medical updates, structural inspections and the fire marshal's investigation.
The confirmed record was therefore limited but consequential: one resident died, at least 22 people were hurt, three buildings were involved and 270 responders worked the incident. The cause and any responsibility for the fire remained undetermined. Officials had not announced when the marshal's findings would be released.
