A fire and explosion ripped through a Hastings-on-Hudson townhouse near the St. Andrew’s Golf Club Wednesday morning, officials say.
The explosion occurred moments after the Hastings Fire Department rescued a woman in her late 60s from the house’s second floor, where she was trapped in the elevator and trying to escape the fire, said Greenburgh Police Chief Christopher McNerney. The woman was taken to Westchester Medical Center for smoke inhalation.
“I opened the window and I smelled the smoke and then I looked outside and saw all hell broke loose,” a neighbor told 1010 WINS’ Roger Stern. The chief described the fire as “pretty involved,” a “very heavy smoke condition with flames shooting out of the unit.”
The fire, which started in the woman’s condo, blazed through three units in the building and involved three or four families. All were safely evacuated before the explosion.
Officials suspect the explosion may have had to do with an open gas line, and Con Ed workers immediately shut it off upon entering the scene.
