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Tenants Safely Escape Harlem Fire Thanks to Quick-Thinking Neighbors

By Sybile Penhirin | August 22, 2014 12:37pm
 Fire ripped through a three bedroom apartment in Central Harlem on August 22, 2014.
246 W. 124th St. fire
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CENTRAL HARLEM — A fire destroyed an apartment building on West 124th Street early Friday — but no one was injured thanks to a quick-thinking tenant who alerted fellow residents to the blaze.  

Kinisha Barrett, 32, was home at 246 W. 124th St. at Frederick Douglass Blvd. when the blaze broke out about 2:40 a.m. in her second-floor unit, she said.

“I heard a sparkling noise and then I saw some smoke coming from our living room,” said Barrett, a child care assistant who was in her apartment with her 3-year-old daughter when the blaze erupted.

She grabbed her daughter and fled, but not before first banging on the doors of her fellow tenants, including her upstairs neighbor, she said.

Firefighters responded to the scene and brought the blaze under control about 40 minutes later, officials said.

“Thank God she was here. I’ve tried to pull the fire alarm on my floor and nothing happened,” said 48-year-old Latisha Oliver, who lives on the third floor with her son.

Tenants said no fire alarms or sprinklers went off after smoke started to fill the building corridors. Barrett said she also tried to pull the fire alarm on her floor, but part of it dislodged.

The building, owned by the Abyssinian Development Corporation, does not have any violations related to faulty fire equipment, public records show. Reps from the company were not immediately available for comment.

Barrett said Friday's fire was the second time a fire has broken out in her place.

"We had a fire ... a year ago, but it was smaller because it was caught in time,” said Barrett. "This time I lost everything, everything."

Officials were investigating the cause of Friday's blaze, they said.