Death, heroism mark massive NYC fire

Fire raced through a five-story apartment building on New York City's Upper East Side early Thursday, killing at least one person and injuring 12, fire officials said.

In a heroic rescue, a firefighter was lowered from the roof to extricate a man from a fifth-floor window amid the flames.

The fatality was a resident of the complex, and one other civilian suffered serious injuries, the fire department said. Seven firefighters and four civilians suffered minor injuries.

"The fire is not under control but probably will hold," the department said in a statement released about four hours after the blaze was first reported. A short time later, however, the fire was doused.

The fire broke out on the first floor and quickly spread through much of the building, fire officials said. Flames roaring through the roof lit up the pre-dawn sky. The six-alarm fire drew hundreds of firefighters to the scene. The cause of the blaze was not immediately determined.

Zachary Rawlings, who lives across the street from the complex, told USA TODAY he awoke to a neighbor yelling "fire." He said that within five minutes the blaze had spread from the first floor to the roof of the building in the fashionable neighborhood of revamped, century-old dwellings.

He watched as burning debris fell on nearby cars. Then, he saw an elderly man trapped on the fifth-floor fire escape. A firefighter lowered by rope from the roof scooped the man up. Together they were lowered to the ground.

"By the time he was down, flames were shooting out his window," Rawlings said. "The rope even caught fire... FDNY were rock stars."

Firefighter Jim Lee told WABC-TV he pulled a man from the fifth-floor window.

“I told him to stay calm and when we got down, I said, 'hope you enjoyed the ride.' He sort of smiled and he was thankful,” Lee told the TV station.

“This is the type of rescue that is really extraordinary,” FDNY Chief of Department James Leonard told WABC-TV.