Fire, Investigated as Suspicious, Fills Tribeca Tower with Smoke

A tenant of 310 Greenwich Street in Tribeca is treated for smoke inhalation before being transported to a hospital. A fire official termed all six injuries in the two-alarm blaze as "minor." Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

A two-alarm fire that officials say is being investigated as suspicious broke out in a fifth-floor hallway of 310 Greenwich St. in Tribeca's Independence Plaza Sunday night, filling the 37-story building with smoke.

( [1]Click here for an update on cleanup efforts in the building.)  [1]

Seven tenants suffering from smoke inhalation and one firefighter were taken to a hospital for treatment, according to Deputy Chief Richard Howe, who termed all the injuries minor.

One hundred fifty firefighters responded to the blaze that Howe said took two hours to bring under control and was confined to the fifth floor. No one was trapped, he said, though "people started to get a little panicky coming out of their apartments. We moved people out of the building who were in any type of danger and the other people we recommended to shelter in place."

"It was scary, really scary," said Alex Mrabet, who fled his 19th-floor apartment and made it out of the building. "I opened the door and what are you going to do? In every hallway the smoke was so dark."

Henry Stimler and his wife walked down from the 23rd floor. "There was a tremendous amount of black smoke so we thought the fire was on our floor," Stimler said. "We ran down and got to the eighth floor and it was incredibly hard to keep going. We thought we were stuck."  The couple eventually made their way to a second stairwell and got down safely.

Frank DeMarco, a resident in the building, called the smoke "toxic." "It had a chemical aroma to it," he said.

Howe, the deputy fire chief, said fire marshals are investigating the cause of the blaze. "Usually you don't have fire in hallways," he said.