Massive fire burns down part of an NYPD evidence center in Brooklyn

The fire, which was still burning late into the afternoon, might not be contained for several days, officials said.

Everything inside the facility was either lost or damaged, John Hodgens, the fire chief, said at a news conference. The fire was burning deep inside the structure, he said, and has already caused a portion of it to collapse.

Fire boats in Gowanus Bay blasted jets of water at the building, known as the Erie Basin Auto Pound. Emergency vehicles, including three helicopters and 33 fire units, were working to contain the flames early Tuesday afternoon. About 140 firefighters were at the scene, according to the department.

The fire was first reported by Police Department contractors working inside of the auto pound, said Jeffrey Maddrey, the acting chief of department, at the news conference Tuesday afternoon.

The workers noticed what appeared to be a fire that had started on a storage shelf and reported it to the Police Department, he said. The fire was called into the Fire Department at around 10:30 a.m.

Smoke rises from a fire in Brooklyn. (The New York Times)

Three firefighters, three emergency medical technicians and two civilians were taken to a nearby hospital with minor injuries, Hodgens said.

Containing the fire is difficult because the building is “sealed off,” with few doors or windows for water to penetrate from the outside, he said.

“I would estimate most contents are damaged by fire,” he said.

Firefighters had initially attempted to contain the fire from inside, Hodgens said, but quickly left because of the strength of the flames and because “large amounts of combustibles” inside of the building made the situation unstable.

The fire is “probably going to go on a few days,” he added.

The auto pound is one of two operated by the Police Department — another is in Springfield Gardens, Queens — and houses vehicles that have been seized as part of investigations, as well as e-bikes and illegal motorbikes.

The facility also holds biological evidence for cold cases going as far back as 30 years, including DNA from unsolved burglaries and possibly murders, Maddrey said, but it does not house rape kits. Maddrey said that the fire was “absolutely” devastating.

The magnitude of the damage won’t be known until catalogs of everything that was stored inside are reviewed, he said.

The fire led to the collapse of a portion of a warehouse, and much of the evidence kept there may be destroyed, according to officials. (Andrew Seng/The New York Times)

“We expect the NYPD and district attorneys to provide us a full accounting of the evidence that was damaged and to immediately inform defense counsel about individual cases that may have been impacted,” said Redmond Haskins, a spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society, one of the city’s largest providers of legal services for indigent clients.

In 2012, when Hurricane Sandy tore through the city, two warehouses on the compound were inundated, damaging hundreds of barrels of evidence and affecting a number of ongoing cases.