NEW YORK – An eight-alarm blaze in a vacant warehouse complex Tuesday sent plumes of thick black smoke over the city, and eight firefighters were injured.
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta called the Brooklyn blaze the largest fire in the city in more than a decade, excluding the World Trade Center attack.
Some 70 Fire Department units and 350 firefighters battled the blaze and two marine units sprayed water on the flames from the East River. More than 6 million gallons of water were poured on the blaze, Scoppetta said.
The fire, which officials described as suspicious, was still not under control by noon, more than six hours after it erupted.
The seven vacant warehouses were fully engulfed in flames when the first units arrived.
Two firefighters were taken to a nearby hospital and the others were treated at the scene, Scoppetta said.
The warehouse complex is officially unoccupied, though it was unclear whether squatters were living there, fire officials said. It was not clear what was inside the warehouses, but Scoppetta said bales of cloth burned in one of the buildings.
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