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Three people were killed and two firefighters injured in a fire at a house in Queens on Saturday morning, fire officials said.
Firefighters were called to a house at 90-31 48th Avenue in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens at 5:37 a.m. and found the three-story building engulfed in flames. Fire had reached every floor of the three-unit house, officials said.
Two bodies were found on the first floor and another body was found on the third floor, said Thomas Richardson, chief of fire operations. Officials did not release the ages or identities of the victims.
Eight people lived at the house. Two residents who escaped the fire had minor injuries and were taken to hospitals and one other resident was uninjured.
Two others had been unaccounted for but fire officials said they later learned they were not in the house at the time of the fire.
The fire most likely started on the first floor and the cause is under investigation, Chief Richardson said.
Two firefighters were also injured, including one who fell through a floor in the house, officials said. The firefighter’s injury was minor and he was able to get out of the house on his own.
Chief Richardson said 145 firefighters and emergency medical workers responded.
Since 2001, 35 complaints have been lodged with the New York City Department of Buildings about the house. More than a dozen complaints have been filed in the past two years. Many of the complaints were about the building being overcrowded.
In October 2019, there were between 18 and 20 people living in the building even though it had a vacate order, according to city records.
In January, a prospective tenant who went to the building complained that more than 60 people appeared to be living there.
“I also witnessed people using drugs and the whole house” smelled of marijuana, the complaint said.
City inspectors repeatedly reported that no one would answer the door when they went to investigate complaints.
The owner of the building could not immediately be reached for comment.
So far this year, 62 people have been killed in fires in the city, said Frank Dwyer, a spokesman for the Fire Department. Last year, 66 people were killed.
Since 2005, fewer than 100 people a year have died in fires, a number that fire officials described as “unprecedented” in the city’s history.
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