Upper East Side Fire: 1 Man Dead, 13 Injured as Massive Blaze Guts Apartment Building

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A fire that broke out on the roof of the six-story row house at 324 E. 93rd St. around 3:30 a.m. Thursday morning, in the Yorkville neighborhood of the Upper East Side, killed a man stuck inside the building and injured 13 others, according to city officials. Another elderly man on the third floor barely survived the fire, but was saved last-minute by a member of the FDNY's Rescue 1 team.

"An unidentified adult male was discovered on the third floor of the location, unconscious and unresponsive," the NYPD said in a statement. He was declared dead at the scene, police said.

The victim of the fire has since been identified to be 25-year-old Lemmy Thuku, a resident of the building.

Four other civilians and eight firefighters came away with minor injuries, and another civilian — an 81-year-old man who was also pulled from the burning building — suffered serious injuries, according to FDNY and NYPD officials.

The 81-year-old would have died if not for an "extraordinary rescue" that placed the life of one firefighter in jeopardy, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.

The city hero, identified by TV news outlets as Jim Lee, saved the man, who was stuck on the third floor, in an extremely risky "roof-rope rescue," Nigro said — in which he lowered the man down the back of the building on a rope attached to the roof.

"He had two choices… to jump or to burn, neither of which would have been survivable," Nigro said, adding: "I can’t say enough about the danger involved in that type of rescue."

Lee later told ABC7: "You couldn't see anything over the edge, there was so much smoke and flames going out the window. ... I told him to stay calm and when we got down, I said, 'hope you enjoyed the ride.' He sort of smiled and he was thankful."

By 5 a.m. Thursday morning, the massive fire at 324 E. 93rd St. had overtaken the entire apartment building and run through six alarms.

More than four hours after the fire broke out, around 7:45 a.m., the fire was finally declared "under control" by the FDNY.

The century-old building that caught fire contains 10 apartments, according to real-estate listings online.

Dozens of residents on the block — East 93rd Street between First and Second avenues — were evacuated Thursday while firefighters attacked the flames. The Red Cross was on scene to assist, ABC reported.

"When you wake up in the middle of the night it's the last thing you can imagine," one resident told PIX11 at the scene. "In the middle of your sleep its the worst thing."

Twitter user @clovermews live-tweeted the fire through the night (see below). At one point, she said construction clutter from the never-ending Second Avenue subway project was "making it impossible for enough fire trucks to get into our block."

Earlier the same night, firefighters put out a three-alarm fire in a luxury West Village duplex after battling the blaze for more than two hours.

Lead photo by Gene Y./Twitter