Several firefighters were injured battling a five-alarm blaze Saturday on Staten Island.
The flames broke out shortly after 7 p.m. at a fire marshal’s house on Steinway Avenue in the New Springville section. “One of the houses is one of our fire marshals’. Fortunately, his family and his baby were down at the Jersey Shore for the weekend, but he was at work to come home and find that his house was destroyed,” Chief of Department James Leonard said.
Witnesses told CBS2’s Reena Roy they saw black smoke billowing into the air.
“We were just in the backyard enjoying our day. Then next thing I know, I look to my left and just a big cloud, like a mushroom cloud, of black just comes out of nowhere,” neighbor Akallah Figueroa said.
“It spread so quickly that it was like a plume of smoke, like huge, like a big, black cloud of smoke and it was very, very thick,” said Kristie Spielman. “I started to choke. We had to walk away a little bit.”