{"id":137560,"date":"2026-02-18T16:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/137560\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T16:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:57:09","slug":"brooklyn-building-evacuated-after-explosive-manhole-fire-and-carbon-monoxide-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/137560\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn building evacuated after explosive manhole fire and carbon monoxide leak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two people were injured by a dramatic manhole fire outside a Williamsburg NYCHA complex on Wednesday morning.\n<\/p>\n<p>Carbon monoxide levels began to climb at 101 Humboldt St. at Borinquen Plaza Houses at around 3:30 a.m., per the FDNY, apparently due to a manhole fire.\n<\/p>\n<p>Firefighters on the scene said CO levels in the building\u2019s lobby shot from 400 parts per million to 1,000 ppm in a matter of minutes, forcing them to evacuate the seven-story building.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-238437 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DSC_9155.jpg\" alt=\"manhole fire williamsburg \" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" title=\"Brooklyn building evacuated after explosive manhole fire and carbon monoxide leak 1\"\/>Fire burst through the manhole and engulfed a parked vehicle. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell.<\/p>\n<p>The fire suddenly exploded into the street and engulfed a parked car. Firefighters triggered a second alarm just before 7 a.m., calling more crews to the scene as they struggled to control the blaze.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI smelled lots of gas, looked out my window and suddenly saw a massive fire ball,\u201d one resident told Brooklyn Paper. \u201cI thought that was it for me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>Two civilians were injured and transferred to NYC Health+Hospitals\/Woodhull for evaluation, per the FDNY.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-238440 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DSC_5080.jpg\" alt=\"firefighters near manhole fire \" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" title=\"Brooklyn building evacuated after explosive manhole fire and carbon monoxide leak 2\"\/>Firefighters struggled to get the blaze under control. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell.\n<\/p>\n<p>Crews were still on the scene as of 10 a.m., per the FDNY, attempting to bring the situation under control. Con Edison and National Grid are working to \u201cassess the circumstances,\u201d according to a ConEd spokesperson, and expect to know more later today. A crew member on the scene said the operation would likely continue for hours as they attempt to identify and stop the gas leak.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NYCHA set up a temporary warming center at 70 Siegel St., according to a representative of Council Member Jennifer Guti\u00e9rrez, as well as three warming buses. The American Red Cross is on the scene to assist residents impacted by the blaze.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The cause of the fire is not yet clear. Winter manhole fires are frequently sparked when melting snow mixed with road salt <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brooklynpaper.com\/con-ed-park-slope-power-outage-continues\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">corrode electrical equipment<\/a> below ground.<\/p>\n<p>This is a breaking news story and will be updated.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two people were injured by a dramatic manhole fire outside a Williamsburg NYCHA complex on Wednesday morning. Carbon&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[58397,98,100,99,32737,1168,2537,18624,194,545,58398,35905,58399,4760,2610,9,24,37283,12,370,63,1424],"class_list":{"0":"post-137560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-borinquen-plaza-houses","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-carbon-monoxide","13":"tag-con-edison","14":"tag-east-williamsburg","15":"tag-explosion","16":"tag-fdny","17":"tag-fire","18":"tag-humboldt-street","19":"tag-manhole","20":"tag-manhole-fire","21":"tag-national-grid","22":"tag-neighborhoods","23":"tag-new-york","24":"tag-new-york-city","25":"tag-new-york-city-fire-department","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-newsletter","28":"tag-nyc","29":"tag-williamsburg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}