Newsday

Firefighters were called to the six-story apartment building at 425 E. 102nd St. at about 4:20 a.m. They were met with the sight of thick black smoke pouring out of the third-floor apartment's windows, said Lt. Gregory Prial of Ladder Company 43. From two of the windows, a man and a woman leaned out, straddling the windowsill and struggling for air.

When firefighters broke open the apartment door, they found a living room fully engulfed in flames. Beyond the flames, the hallway and the bedrooms where the people -- a mother, father, daughter, and two others -- were trapped.

"We could hear people yelling for help and moaning," Prial said. "It definitely sounds like they're in trouble."

The fire apparently started when faulty Christmas lights set an artificial Christmas tree in the apartment on fire, fire officials said.

Prial and the other firefighters crept past the flames to the bedrooms, where they found a 24-year-old woman nearly unconscious, suffering from second-degree burns and smoke inhalation.

In the other bedrooms, a woman wailed and a man sat wedged in the window, bleeding and covered in soot.

A third woman was rescued from a window; firefighters had leaned a 35-foot ladder against the building and pulled her out. And a second man, who Prial said was in the "best shape," was rescued from another bedroom.

The burned woman was taken to New York Presbyterian/Weill-Cornell Hospital. The rest of the victims were taken to Metropolitan Hospital and treated for smoke inhalation. All are expected to survive. Fire officials did not identify the victims.

The fire was contained in about 30 minutes.

Prial said that the layout of the apartment, combined with the fact that they had to rescue five people from three rooms, could easily have turned the situation into a tragic one.

"It could have been real bad," Prial said.