#Homeless encampment burns down in Chelsea, leaving one injured

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The aftermath of the fire outside of 120 West 30th Street in Chelsea.
William Farrington

Fire burned down a homeless encampment in Chelsea, leaving one person hurt and neighbors with many questions.

It’s unclear what caused the blaze, which broke out before 7 a.m. on the side of 120 West 30th Street, where a custodian on his way to work in the building saw a man leap out of the flaming encampment.

Ronnie, who works at Satellite Academy, said he saw the flames from a block away.

“I saw it get higher and higher. I ran into my building to get the extinguisher. I started spraying the extinguisher to try to put it out, then I heard somebody saying ‘Help me,’ ‘Help me.’ I didn’t know what to do,” Ronnie told The Post.

“Then a guy jumped out. He fell on the floor. I said, ‘Look what you did, you started a fire,’ and he said, ‘No, I was sleeping, someone threw a cigarette.’”

Cops and firefighters later told Ronnie the homeless victim was burned on his arms and legs. One person was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the FDNY said.

The custodian fumed that while he was trying to help the homeless person, another man across the street recorded the fire drama.

“He was screaming, ‘Call the fire department, do something.’ But shouldn’t he have been the one to call, since he’s recording? But that’s what people do now, record everything. He was just recording it, he wasn’t laughing or anything. I really doubt he had anything to do with it. I didn’t see him when the fire department got there, I don’t know, he must have left.”

It’s the second fire in two weeks at the encampment, where at least two other people had been living “since the whole corona thing started,” the custodian said.

“Everyone was cool with them. The cops would talk to them, bring them food. At first it was just two mattresses, but at Phase 3 it started getting bigger. It became its own entity. It became like a house.

“We called 311, sanitation,” he said. “We heard that they cleaned up the one in the village, so we thought maybe they would clean up this one. We never went in there ourselves.”

He doubted the fire was intentionally set, noting, “There is a police station here. Cops would see you doing something like that. It’s a really safe block.”

The FDNY did not say what caused the fire.