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By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Daily
More than 50 firefighters, emergency personnel, and civilians were injured on Thursday morning as a seven-alarm inferno threatened to engulf a Flatbush apartment building.
The 10 am blaze — which witnesses say was started when a bolt of lightning from an approaching storm hit the building — quickly overwhelmed the top floors of the six-story New York Avenue structure between Hawthorne and Winthrop streets, FDNY officials said.
Seven fire units and over 100 of New York’s Bravest spent the next three and a half hours dousing the blaze.
An FDNY spokesman said that 48 firefighters, two emergency medical technicians, and two residents of the charred apartment building suffered smoke inhalation and other minor injuries.
Despite witness statements that the fire was sparked by a bolt of lightning during Thursday’s early morning storm, an FDNY spokesman said Friday that investigators were still trying to determine what caused the blaze.
Reach reporter Colin MIxson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4514.