NY 1

Flames broke out shortly after 3:30 a.m. Tuesday on 114th Street and Jamaica Avenue and took about an hour to get under control.

"No suspicion of ignitable liquids or anyone who lit it in the area of origin," said Fire Marshal John Paolella. "It is heavily charred so it looks like it was burning for a while."

Fire officials described the house as a Collyers' Mansion, which is an old Fire Department term for a home packed from floor to ceiling with belongings making it tough for firefighters to work.

"I had one two weeks ago, same condition - floor to ceiling with debris," said FDNY Battalion Chief Patrick Ginty. "You find this a lot with people who have been in the neighborhood for a long time, live by themselves. They just collect things over the years and it just builds up."

Investigators say the man who lived in the house - Robert Fuchs - also had up to a dozen cats, most of them strays. Fuchs was sleeping when the flames broke out, but he escaped unhurt and is staying with a neighbor.

"When they found that it was Bobby's house, they broke down the window to get Bobby out," said neighbor Joe Elias. "Bobby came out through the window. And that's when I grabbed him, put him inside my car. After that, I just took him inside my house and wrapped him up with blankets."

One of the firefighters saved a fellow firefighter by pulling him out a window after he got trapped on the second floor.

"He pulled him out of the window and they rolled onto a setback roof and fell to the ground about ten feet," said Ginty.

Fire officials say one of the injured firefighters has a possible broken leg and the other has second degree burns to the ears, neck, and hands.

They're both listed in stable condition.

In response to that fire and two deadly fires in the past week, a firefighters union official says fire response times in Queens are unacceptable.

Uniformed Firefighters Association head Steve Cassidy says it takes five minutes to get to fires in the borough -- which he says is the slowest in the city.

He blames the problem on a new pilot program that he says only gives firefighters an address and not additional details pertaining to the fire, such as how many people may be inside and how bad the fire is.

"Today they didn't save a few seconds. Today they delayed a response by several minutes," said Cassidy. "They sent him to the wrong address. A fire fighter is in the burn unit because they sent him to the wrong address, because they have a dispatch policy that is failed."

The FDNY says the two deadly fires were a result of other issues and not the pilot program.

As for the program, the Fire Department says, "In the last two weeks, average response times to structural fires in Queens have dropped by 24 seconds under a new pilot program in the borough. This means firefighters are getting to fires faster, which means they - and the public - are better protected."