What to Know
- Five people were hurt, one of them seriously, when a three-alarm blaze tore through a recycling center in the Bronx overnight, officials say
- At first the smoke was too heavy to determine the source of the fire; authorities had to use a drone and thermal imaging
- Ultimately, they found the fire in the ceiling, though say it may have started below and crept upward; it was declared under control by 4 am
Five people were hurt, one of them seriously, when a three-alarm blaze tore through a recycling center in the Bronx overnight, authorities say.
Fire officials responded to the blaze on East 136th Street in Port Morris around 12:30 a.m. and encountered heavy smoke upon arrival, officials say. The smoke made it difficult at first to identify the origin of the fire, which ultimately required drone use and thermal imaging to determine.
Fire officials say a cause of the blaze, which they traced to the ceiling, is under investigation. They say the fire may have started below the ceiling and crept upward, but that remains under investigation.
Photos and video from the scene were dramatic, with firefighters seen trudging through intense orange flames against the pitch black backdrop of night.
Firefighters had to mount both internal and external attacks to get the blaze under control, which they had done by about 4 a.m. Thursday.
