by THOMAS J. LUECK
A fire in Elmhurst, Queens, tore through the top of an apartment building last night, injuring 4 civilians and 14 firefighters, including one who was hospitalized on a respirator.
Around the same time, a fire erupted in a brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, killing a resident of the building, who was a security guard and an amateur painter. The fire was contained to his kitchen, where firefighters quickly extinguished it.
The blaze in Queens was more spectacular and difficult to fight, burning through three top-floor apartments in a seven-story building at 41-65 Forley Street. Firefighters were called shortly before 6:30 p.m., and more than 40 vehicles and 120 emergency personnel responded before the fire was brought under control about 9 p.m., officials said.
Most of the injuries were minor. The firefighter who was most seriously injured suffered smoke inhalation and burns, and was taken first to Elmhurst Hospital Center. He was later transported to the burn unit at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. Fire officials declined to identify him but said last night that he was in stable condition and was expected to survive.
The Fire Department's chief of operations, Salvatore Cassano, said the fire was hard to fight because the door of the top-floor apartment where it started had been left open when the apartment's occupants fled. Firefighters had to fight their way through smoke to the top floor, he said.
About 60 residents were evacuated from the building, which is about a mile south of La Guardia Airport and has 78 apartments.
The cause was under investigation.
The man who died in Brooklyn was identified by neighbors as Larry Johnson, a security guard in his 40's or early 50's who lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of the three-story brownstone at 371 Madison Street.
Although the cause of the fire remained under investigation, fire officials said it appeared that it started on or near Mr. Johnson's stove and engulfed his clothing.
Neighbors said he had lived alone and had been an avid painter. Several of his oil and watercolor paintings were hanging on the walls, fire officials said.
Janon Fisher and Matt Sweeney contributed reporting for this article.
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