By Bryan Schwartzman
Firefighters blocked off traffic on 21st Street while they battled the fire, which started between the two old warehouses. One contains a bakery and has at least one other tenant, but the other warehouse is abandoned.
“These buildings would have gone up,” said Kent McGrew, who rents one of the storage garages that caught fire. “These buildings go back to the '30s. They would have burned down quickly .”
The fire started at about 2:53 p.m. in one of the garages behind the warehouse at 40-24 22nd St., said Firefighter James Spollen, a Fire Department spokeswoman. Second and third alarms were sounded and a total of 138 firefighters in 33 units worked to extinguish the fire before it spread to the surrounding buildings, said Spollen.
The flames were put out at about 3:50 p.m., and the fire marshal was still investigating the cause of the blaze, Spollen said. One firefighter suffered a knee injury and was taken to Elmhurst Hospital in stable condition, said Spollen.
Firefighters had to bring water hoses down a narrow alley in order to reach the open space where the row of seven storage garages were located.
“This thing really would have spread,” said McGrew, who rents a converted loft space and uses it as a photography studio at the warehouse on 22nd Street.
McGrew said he was in the process of moving some belongings from the loft into his garage below.
“The timing of this is amazing,” he said.
McGrew described two suspicious looking people who were loafing around the building and wondered if they had anything to do with the start of the fire.
McGrew said very few people live in the old warehouse, while the building facing 21st Street directly behind the garages is abandoned. In several neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn, it has become a trend to convert warehouse space into loft-style living space.
“They are telling me there is a lot of water damage, but nothing really looks destroyed,” he said about his belongings in the garage.
A bakery is in one of the warehouses across from the garages.
“I smelled smoke, I came out and it was a big fire,” said John Kumro, an employee at Hand Made Products.
Kumro said he moved his delivery truck away from the garage very quickly, while a co-worker called the Fire Department.
“The Fire Department came in about 30 seconds,” Kumro said. “If they didn't, the whole thing would have gone up.”
