KIPS BAY — Firefighters battled an enormous fire atop an apartment building Thursday afternoon, the FDNY said.
The FDNY responded to an emergency call about the blaze that broke out on a rooftop shed at about 2:45 p.m. at 205 E. 26th St., witnesses and officials said.
"We started smelling smoke and we saw a lady across the street waving her arms yelling fire," said Mohammad Ashraf, one of the owners of Cherry NYC, a middle-eastern restaurant next door.
Ashraf began knocking on the doors of nearby businesses telling people to clear out, he said.
About 105 firefighters managed to contain the flames before they spread to the rest of the building that house a cleaner, a massage parlor and a salon.
A video posted on Twitter shows flames erupting from the roof of the building.
Fire in Gramercy on 26th and 3rd #fdny pic.twitter.com/G6g8foIgN7
— Smit Purohit (@smittyp92) May 7, 2015No one was injured and firefighters had the blaze under control by 3:30 p.m., fire officials said.
After the flames had died out, workers at the cleaners on the bottom level of the building heaved buckets of water out onto the sidewalk.
The owner of the cleaner declined to comment at the scene of the fire.
