A six-year veteran of the FDNY and a civilian died Sunday in a Brooklyn house fire that trapped a team of firefighters after a partial ceiling collapse, city officials said.
Firefighter Timothy Klein, 31, was one of more than 100 FDNY members responding to the Avenue N residence in Canarsie — that caught fire shortly before 2 p.m. Sunday — when conditions turned deadly.
A second body was later recovered but could not identified, the NYPD said. Hours earlier, city officials at a press briefing said one resident of the home could not be located.
Firefighters were inside the residence when its deteriorating structure prompted officials to call for an evacuation, Acting Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said. Before they could do so, Klein and three other FDNY members became trapped when part of the ceiling collapsed.
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Kavanagh said the other members were able to make it out of the fire and were transported to a hospital for treatment.
The Sunday afternoon blaze triggered a 3-alarm response that brought 33 units and more than 100 FDNY members to the Brooklyn home, officials said.
Eight firefighters sustained varying injuries in the response, some of which were transported to hospitals to treat burns, officials said.
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One person who lives at the residence was unaccounted for in the hours immediately following the fire.
"I could see one of the firefighters on the ladder and the smoke was so black that all I could see were the yellow stripes on his uniform," one neighbor said.
Those living in the area were encouraged to close windows due to the amount of smoke in the air.
Fire investigators were still working late Sunday to determine a cause of the fire.
