A 25-year-old man was identified as the victim in the Upper East Side fire early Thursday morning, police said Friday.
Lemmy Thuku, a resident of 324 E. 93rd St., was found dead on the third floor of the burning building, cops said.
Thuku was the only victim in the fire that broke out around 3:30 a.m. Thursday and took more than four hours to be placed under control. An 81-year-old man was taken to the hospital in serious condition. Four other civilians and 11 firefighters had minor injuries.
Firefighter Jim Lee Jr., 43, was praised for his daring rescue of the 81-year-old man from a third-floor window. Lee dangled from the roof of the building with a rope, grabbed the man from the window and was safely lowered to the ground.
“When we looked up, the fire was coming out of all the windows in his apartment,” Lee said in a Facebook post about the rescue. “Another two minutes and he probably wouldn’t be with us.”
A total of 22 adults and two children were displaced by the fire that tore through the five-story building, the Red Cross said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, the FDNY said.
