Family says heroic friend saved their lives when fire broke out at Brooklyn hardware store
BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, Brooklyn (WABC) -- A four-alarm fire that apparently started in a hardware store burned through a four-story building in Brooklyn Thursday morning, and firefighters have now labeled the blaze as suspicious.
The fire started in the first floor of the building on 1153 Fulton Street in Bedford Stuyvesantat around 5:10 a.m. and quickly spread to the second, third and fourth floors.
For Abdou Alye, it happened quickly. He and his family were sleeping when the flames started next door. Then they heard a knock on the door.
"I bang on the door and tell them, 'Get out! Get out of the apartment! Leave the building right now,'" good Samaritan Chris Srikrishui said.
Srikrishui happened to be walking by and saw the smoke coming from the hardware store. He then saw flames spreading to the building next door.
"Those are my brothers and sisters," he said. "We pray together at the mosque, so I know them."
Alye said he immediately grabbed his kids and his wife to get out of the building.
"We just walking out of the smoke," he said. "We don't see the stairs. Everything was smoke."
Fire crews are now calling the fire suspicious because of the large flames they found when they arrived.
Alye says he lost almost everything, except for what matters most.
"Thanks to God my kids are safe," he said. "I'm safe. So that's more important."
Alye is thankful for his friend, who was there to wake him at the right time.
"God sent me," Srikrushui said.
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