WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — A man was found dead and covered in burns after a fire tore through a Washington Heights basement Wednesday morning, FDNY and NYPD officials said.
Flames erupted inside the cluttered basement of 603 W. 184th St., near St. Nicholas Avenue, about 8:50 a.m., officials said.
Smoke quickly climbed through the apartment building, a tenant said.
"I was sleeping in my bed. I smelled smoke and looked out the window. I saw a lot of smoke rising from the bottom of the building. I didn't know what I should do, then someone knocked on my door," said Karen Soto, 19, who lives on the second floor.
"I smell like I smoked 10 packs of cigarettes," Soto said once outside.
About 40 firefighters brought the blaze under control about 9:52 a.m., the FDNY said.
"The main body of fire extinguished rather quickly, but it got up into the voids and it got under bathtubs and tile above, so we had to do quite a bit of dismantling of the building to get to the seed of the fire so it wouldn't spread throughout the whole building," said FDNY Deputy Chief Joe Saccente.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene, the FDNY said. The Medical Examiner will determine how he died, officials said.
Tenants said he had lived and worked in the building for decades and greeted them as they came and went.
On Saturday, paramedics tried to bring him to the hospital, but he refused to go with them, tenants said.
"He'd been sick awhile," Soto said.
"You'd see him all the time, but no one knew anything about him," she added.
