A massive fire erupted in a Manhattan, New York skyscraper Tuesday morning, which was near the start of the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Emergency services responded to the fire Tuesday morning. The building is near East 43rd Street and Madison Avenue. Onlookers could see giant flames billowing from the building’s rooftop.
Firefighters were able to extinguish the flames before 11:00 A.M. Eastern time, when the parade was scheduled to start. Law enforcement reported no injuries as a result of the fire.
Local reports stated that officials said that the fire originated in the HVAC system located on the roof of the building. The building is an office-to-residential conversion that is being transformed into 441 rental units, 111 of them to be affordable housing units.
An EMS lieutenant and a police officer suffered minor injuries.
“It seemed like everyone and their mother was getting out of the building,” a worker named Chris said, according to AMNY. “I couldn’t tell if it was our building initially or if the smoke was coming out of the backside.”
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