From the FDNY Facebook page . . .
"This is an extraordinary amount of damage from this single e-bike. This call came in around 10:41 a.m. this morning. We are still here fighting this fire. We have over 50 units, Fire and EMS, on scene. We have over 200 members. We have seven injuries, five firefighters, one member of the EMS and one civilian. Everyone is stable," said Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh. "But this really shows you how incredibly serious this can be. Thanks to the quick work of our members who were here in under four minutes, we have not suffered a loss of life. There is extraordinary damage. This entire building behind me is completely destroyed. The roof is caved in. There is nothing left. It's all because of this one single e-bike. And so we really want to emphasize to the public how much damage can be done by a single e-bike that isn’t a compliant, a single e-bike that might not be certified, might be using an illegal battery. This bike could be in your home. And if it can do this amount of damage to a store of this size, just think of the danger that to yourself, to your family, to your building."
"We quickly stretched the hose line into the building and started to extinguish the fire. The amount of fire that is produced by a single battery in just under five minutes, we were unable to get ahead of it. It had spread quickly into the void spaces of the building and took off from there. These buildings are old and the lumber and when you expose that aged lumber, to fire, it quickly spreads throughout the entire building," said Chief of Department John Hodgens. "It was a difficult operation. We went to a defensive operation. You see these tower ladders, we stopped the fire from spreading to the furniture store but the fire had already spread to the laundromat. It's really something that we have never seen before as far as a small fire turning into something like this in a matter of a few minutes."
FDNY photos
