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Fire Rips Through Jackson Heights Home, FDNY Says

By Katie Honan | January 11, 2016 3:41pm
 The first started in the basement of the English garden-style home.
The first started in the basement of the English garden-style home.
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DNAinfo/Katie Honan

JACKSON HEIGHTS — Fire officials are still investigating a two-alarm fire that broke out in a Jackson Heights home Friday night. 

The fire broke out in the basement of 34-44 85th St. just before 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 8, according to the FDNY.

It quickly spread to the first floor and was bumped up to two alarms before being extinguished within an hour. 

The fire damaged at least one of the homes in the row of attached red-brick Garden homes, according to the FDNY. 

Fire officials are still investigating the cause of the blaze, which started while the home was unoccupied, officials said

Barbara Downey, 72, who moved in to the home four decades ago, had left her house that afternoon to run errands and grab dinner before returning to the block, she told DNAinfo on Saturday as she surveyed damage to her home.

She noticed the fire trucks as she returned and thought, "I certainly hope it's not me."

When she got as close as she could a neighbor found her and took her hand.

"She said, 'Barbara, it's your house," she recalled. "'It's gone'."

Downey moved into her house in November 1972. She was put up in a nearby hotel Friday night by the Red Cross, and planned to stay with friends while she figured out what's next. 

She was devastated by the fire but said she was fortunate no one was hurt. 

"Things can be replaced, people can't," she said.