MANHATTAN – Three people were injured as firefighters spent nearly three hours hours battling a small inferno that sparked in an SUV parked on the top deck of the garage next to Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in East Harlem and quickly spread to several other vehicles parked nearby.
Thick black smoke could be seen billowing from the top of the garage, located at the corner of East 98th Street and Park Avenue, just before 1:00 pm this afternoon as the flames burned through parked cars— charring metal, melting plastic and igniting leaking fuel from the vehicles.
The air around the scene of the fire was thick with the toxic smell of burnt plastic and rubber wafting from the fire towards the NYCHA houses across the street to the north and east of the garage.
FDNY officials set up a command post on East 99th Street as firefighters worked to knock down the stubborn fire.
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Video posted to social media shows what appears to be the first vehicle on fire— a double parked Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, quickly engulfed in flames the intense flames destroying the Jeep’s hardtop— shooting ten feet in the air and jumping to cars nearby.
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The fire was finally declared under control by firefighters at 3:38 pm.
The three people that were injured in the fire all refused medical attention, FDNY officials tell Upper East Site.
At least six cars were visibly damaged by the fire– right now, its not clear how the fire started.
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