Firefighters valiantly save family’s Thanksgiving dinner from manhole fire that gobbled up SUV, apartment building
A Thanksgiving Day electrical fire in a Brooklyn manhole gobbled up an SUV before spreading into a nearby apartment building — and nearly derailed one family’s holiday meal, FDNY officials said.
The flames erupted around noon along Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights Thursday, causing the evacuation of three buildings in the tony neighborhood, including at least one family in the midst of cooking their Thanksgiving feast, said FDNY Deputy Chief Stephen Corcoran.
An SUV parked over the manhole by Hicks Street was consumed by the blaze as more than 100 firefighters and EMS personnel arrived to quench the fire, officials said.
The fire appeared to be electrical in nature — a cause bolstered by the smoke eaters’ difficulty battling the flames and its apparent spread to a fourth-floor apartment in 76 Remsen St., Corcoran said.
“There’s extensive fire down to that apartment, they will not be able to reoccupy that apartment this evening,” Corcoran said Thursday.
Two other nearby buildings were evacuated because of elevated carbon monoxide levels, officials said.
Corcoran said those buildings’ residents would be able to return to their homes that evening, but likely would be without power as Con Edison crews cut electricity to help extinguish the electrical fire.
But there was a small silver lining for one building.
“One of the buildings that had the extremely high elevated carbon monoxide levels, we were able to go in and save their Thanksgiving dinner and pack up their food for them and give it to them so that they can take it to a relative’s house and enjoy it there,” Corcoran said.
No one was injured in the blaze, which firefighters got under control around 1:25 p.m., fire officials said.
The fire’s cause remains under investigation.