Huge Fire Tears Through Cypress Hills Factory

BROOKLYN — A five-alarm fire broke out in a vacant two-story factory in Cypress Hills Monday afternoon, FDNY officials said.

The blaze at 3250 Fulton St., a few blocks from the Crescent Street J train station, was sparked about 3:25 p.m. The building occupies an entire block stretching from Fulton to Atlantic Avenue between Crescent Street and Euclid Avenue.

More than 200 firefighters were battling the fire well into the evening, FDNY officials said just before 9 p.m.

There were no injuries immediately reported.

"It smelled like chemicals burning," said Al Braide, who works a few blocks away at a real estate company. "The whole place got dark."

Judy Grannum, whose apartment's backyard faces the building, said her family had to leave their house because of the smell.

"We came out and saw black smoke and a lot of fire," she said. "The whole place was black back there, going straight up."

The factory had been vacant for at least two years, according to Charles Pullara, who runs a nearby senior center.

His organization used to get food from the building when Blue Ridge Farms, a food distribution company, occupied it. The company had everything from salads to chicken cutlets, he said.

As the firefighters worked to put out the billowing blaze, J-train service between Broadway Junction in Brooklyn and Parsons Boulevard in Queens was suspended, according to the Office of Emergency Management and MTA.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known.