Upper East Side fire leaves 1 dead, 6 hurt. Video shows massive flames roaring out window.
NEW YORK -- A deadly multi-alarm fire broke out inside an Upper East Side apartment building Monday night.
FDNY officials said the call came in just after 7:15 p.m. and units quickly responded to 526 E. 82nd St. between York and East End avenues.
One resident was killed and six firefighters suffered minor injuries, officials said.
Investigators with both the medical examiner's office and the fire marshal's office are working determine how the fire started and how the resident died.
Firefighters had their hands full
Heavy fire was reported on the fifth floor before spreading to the fourth and sixth floors, and also into the cockloft, the space between the top floor ceiling and the roof.
A second alarm was sounded at 7:30 p.m. and a third alarm came 10 minutes later, officials said. In all, nearly 140 first responders were on site.
Video from a neighboring high rise shows firefighters on the roof.
"People were worried about the fire spreading because they were spraying on the other buildings around. There was a lot of hotspots on the building," neighbor Latry Goldfarb said.
Firefighters did contain the blaze to that one building. Officials detailed the difficulty fighting a fire in an older, non-fireproof building.
"Class 3, non-fireproof, so it's a mixture of a lot of wood, concealed spaces, as well as masonry, so our biggest challenge is the fire we see, but then it's the fire we don't see that's in the walls, that's traveling, that can quickly go from floor to floor," FDNY Deputy Chief Tom Currao said.
"It was like raining glass"
Witnesses described the harrowing scene.
"There was literally a 10-foot flame out of that sixth-floor window," witness Juan Cuervo said.
Cuervo shot video moments after that blaze broke out. He said firefighters arrived quickly, but the flames were already out of control.
"And it was like raining glass because they were breaking all the windows," Cuervo said.
CBS News New York spoke to a man named Matthew, who is among the residents now being assisted by the Red Cross.
"They started banging and screaming in the hallway and stairwell, 'Fire! Fire! Fire!'" Matthew said.
