VIDEO: A fire ripped through row houses in Yonkers on one of the hottest days of the year so far, displacing nearly 100 people and injuring more than a dozen firefighters as well as one resident.
The blaze appeared to have started Sunday afternoon in the backyard of one home on Maple Street but it quickly spread to four nearby houses, according to fire officials and witnesses. Flames could be seen shooting from the roof and thick, black smoke blanketed the entire neighborhood. At one point, every firefighter in Yonkers was on the scene to put out the fast-moving fire.
"I felt the heat. It was sizzling and popping. I ran back inside to make sure everybody was out the door," said Carlos Bonilla.
Firefighters say they received a call just after 4 p.m. about furniture that had caught fire at one of the homes.
"It was so terrible. Everything was pitch black. You couldn't breathe, eyes started getting watery," Marcos Archindia recalled. He said his brother saw the flames started.