by Xana O'Neill
A two-alarm blaze tore through the top floors of a Bronx apartment building Sunday, leaving nine firefighters and one resident with minor injuries, fire officials and witnesses said.
"I saw the flames through the door," said Evelyn Ortiz, 55, who was roused from her fifth-floor flat by a panicked neighbor. "It was so nasty. You couldn't knock on the doors because they were hot."
Ortiz said the 5 a.m. blaze at 1120 Wyatt St., West Farms, quickly spread to the sixth-floor apartment of her best friend, Ruthie Gamboa, who suffered burns on her hands.
"She came knocking on the door and said, 'Call the Fire Department. My apartment's on fire! My apartment's on fire!'" Ortiz said. "Then she showed me her hands."
Nine of the 106 firefighters who responded to the blaze were treated for minor injuries, officials said.
One 36-year-old mother of three said she was asleep when the fire started.
"It was the heat that got me running right quick," she said. "It was really raging up there."
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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