Large Fire Damages Three Crown Heights Buildings

CROWN HEIGHTS – Last night’s fire that broke out in a two-family building on Bergen Street spared its residents, but resulted in minor injuries to six firefighters and one police officer.

Firefighters responded to the fire at 910 Bergen Street at 9:18 pm on Tuesday, January 2, FDNY confirmed. The fire quickly consumed the attached wood frame building and spread to the neighboring buildings resulting in 33 units and 138 firefighters on scene battling the three-alarm fire, before it was brought under control just before midnight.

The @NYCFireWire Twitter account posted a video of the blaze taken from a nearby building:

“We had no civilian injuries, all of the occupants of the buildings self-evacuated before we got here,” said Assistant Chief Roger Sakowich.

910 Bergen Street is one of three wood-frame, three-story buildings on a block that now features some of the hallmarks of gentrification: six-story condo buildings and, across the street, the hip beerhall and event space Berg’n, from the founders of Williamsburg’s Smorgasburg. We have not been able to establish if their business was affected.

In November 2017, an application to renovate the cellar or the building at 910 Bergen Street was denied by the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB).

The FDNY and DOB were unable to confirm if the two additional buildings that caught fire were vacant at the time, but demolition of both was to begin on December 17, 2017, according to DOB. Both 906 and 908 Bergen Street were purchased by 906 Bergen Street LLC in 2016, according to Property Shark, and on March 6, 2017 permits were filed for full demolition of the existing structures. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined and an investigation is underway, though the FDNY has not deemed the fire suspicious.

Other recent fires include:

• In the morning of August 10, an 81-year old woman was killed in a brownstone fire on Pacific Street.
• Then, on September 12, two residents were injured in a highrise fire at the Ebbet’s Field apartments.