The flames broke out around 12:30 p.m. on the third floor of a seven-story building on 101st Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side.
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It quickly spread.
Some residents were home at the time and scrambled to safety, while others were at work and got a call to return home.
"I saw firemen coming up on the ladder, so I decided to leave," resident Haley Collins said. "I didn't know what was going on, so I got my cats and I left."
At least one person was hurt, with the victim listed in serious but stable condition with non-life threatening injuries.
"Smelly, terrifying, alarms sounding," resident Francis Fernandez said. "Everybody going in every different direction, it was chaos."
The FDNY had 33 units on the scene, with 138 firefighters and EMS responding.
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The Red Cross was aiding displaced residents.
"It's destroyed, almost everything is lost," resident Lennin Reyes said. "Water damage, smoke, everything. Some of the ceiling came down, especially in the hallways."
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
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