Fire Menaces Disco; Barely a Step Missed
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NEW YORK — An early morning fire that started in an alley swept up the side of a building above a jammed basement disco Saturday in Manhattan, but patrons ignored firefighters and kept dancing despite warnings to evacuate.
“They were very reluctant to leave,” said Lt. Frank Martinez, a Fire Department spokesman. “They saw no flames and no smoke and they did not feel they were in any danger. That finally changed when the smoke from the flames began pouring into the disco. They got out then.”
None of the revelers at the Oasis Club were injured, but 13 firefighters and two residents of an apartment above the disco suffered minor injuries.
The cause of the fire was under investigation, Martinez said. Damage was considered minor.
The flames roared up pipes and air ducts into three apartment buildings above the disco and ground-level stores, bursting into a fourth-floor apartment.
Dozens of residents fled the row of five-story buildings over the disco. “But the firefighters had trouble persuading these (dancers) to get out,” Martinez said.
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