Girl among 3 badly hurt in Harlem fire

A BLAZE tore through a Harlem highrise Sunday, leaving 12 people injured — three of them critically, including a 6-year-old girl, officials said.

The fire started on the 29th floor of a 35-story building on Fifth Ave. near 110th St. about 6:40 a.m., according to authorities.

Three people were hospitalized in critical condition and three more suffered serious injuries that were not life threatening, the FDNY said.

Six people, including one firefighter, suffered minor injuries. Medics took the victims to local hospitals.

About 80 firefighters rushed to the scene within four minutes of getting the call, said Deputy Chief Michael Gala.

They rescued six people from the smoke-filled apartment, including two children.

The firefighters found the 6-year-old girl in cardiac arrest and a 1-year-old girl in respiratory arrest. The 6-year-old girl’s injuries were considered lifethreatening.

“Our members quickly forced entry, they found two victims in a hallway in the apartment,” said Gala. “They quickly brought them out to the hallway, went back into the apartment, and found four additional victims.”

Gala added he “could not be prouder” of the firefighters who pulled the victims out and extinguished the flames in under an hour, despite challenging conditions of high heat and heavy smoke.

“Clearly, zero visibility is a challenge for our members, they’re operating in the dark,” Gala told reporters at the scene. “But they recovered the victims in a very short period of time.”

Some residents said they didn’t hear any smoke alarms go off.

Allyson Narek, 30, who lives one floor below where the fire broke out, said a neighbor knocked on her door and told her to leave. If not for that, she wouldn’t have known there was a fire.

“I was sort of in this twilight sleep, and I heard a lot of motion upstairs,” she said. “Then my roommate started screaming ‘fire!’ ” said Narek. “And that’s because someone went around to each apartment door and started screaming ‘fire!’ No alarms, nothing.”

A resident who lives on the sixth floor said he didn’t know there was a fire until over an hour later.

“I guess there’s no fire alarms,” he said. “My friend texted me and said, ‘Hey, are you OK?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, why?’ And he said, ‘Your building’s on fire.’ ”

Gala said the cause of the fire was still under investigation.