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Four-Alarm Fire Tears Through Several Businesses in Sunnyside

A fire broke out Thursday at 45-08 44th Street (FDNY via Twitter)

Aug. 12, 2021 By Allie Griffin

A four-alarm fire tore through several businesses in Sunnyside Thursday morning.

Flames broke out inside Taiyo Foods, a Japanese market located at 45-08 44th St., at around 7:20 a.m. The fire quickly spread to the four neighboring businesses housed within the same one-story building, FDNY officials said.

The fire engulfed the buildings and was upgraded to a four-alarm blaze within one hour, according to the FDNY. More than 200 firefighters and EMS personnel reported to the scene.

Firefighters were able to get the flames under control at around 9:15 a.m. Three firefighters suffered non-life-threatening injuries. There were no other injuries.

Videos posted to the Citizen app show a thick column of smoke rising from the building above the raised 7 train subway tracks.

This is a developing story.

Queens Blvd. between 43rd Street and 47th Street filled with FDNY vehicles (Photo: Marie Tuico)

email the author: news@queenspost.com

23 Comments

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Sunny mom

I heard the fire started from Nepal restaurant. How did it spread the wrong information.

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Mixie

Really suspicious. Now watch that abandoned movie theater go next and that scuzzy absentee landlord will be in his glory.

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Patricia Dorfman

https://www.gofundme.com/f/sunnyside-fire-relief-for-small-businesses?

Jaime Faye Bean, exec. director Sunnyside Shines, has organized a GoFund me for victims of the fire, which is in their BID footprint, already up to almost $12K!

Vanessa Ceballos, president of Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce is also involved in organizing.

Another fire tragedy on after a year of the the pandemic, an uptick in new cases of COVID and variant sweeping the nation, the ordeal of the national and local elections is really more than many of us can bear.

For the last fire, we applaud Jaime Faye Bean and Melissa Orlando of Sunnyside Chamber who stepped up as the groups will again, to assist fire victims and unify us all. Sunnyside Community Services and other groups were magnificent.

We love and care about you, fire victims, and will stand by you as best we can.

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Joe

Sorry Patty D., but I don’t applaud Ms. Bean. She has done a poor job. This neighborhood is so rundown looking. The last woman was much better than her, much!

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Gardens Watcher

Super Hot day for a four-alarm fire. Kudos to FDNY for keeping this from spreading like the one on Queens Blvd.

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PTD

Anyone else find it odd that these massive fires keep taking out multiple businesses and buildings on this small stretch of Queens Blvd in Sunnyside? PJ Horgans fire, Sidetracks fire, and now this? I’m sure there are reasonable explanations for each fire, but it’s starting to seem kinda fishy.

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I see a pattern here.

There were some others I recall with eerie similarities. Just before 9/11 on the corner of 46th and QB a fruit and veggie stand and a bar PJ Gilligan’s went up in smoke. There’s a T- Mobile there now. In 2003 on 41st and QB where CVS is now, another fruit and veggie stand caught fire spreading to the newly renovated Blooms Irish pub and half the block.

Coincidence? I think not.

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Gardens Watcher

The fire started at the Asian market on 44th St., a few doors down from QB. ConEd has been doing work on QB all summer.

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Anonymous

After a fire, PJ Horgans chose not rebuild and instead remodeled a former cleaners on Skillman.

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WoodsideAl

Horgans did have a fire in 2015, which closed them down. They were then told by their landlord not to bother repairing the damage, since they were not going to renew their lease anyway and they intended to vacate and demolish the building for development. The bar on Skillman didn’t open until 3 years later.

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Why argue when you could simply fact check?

Lucy- PJ Horgans did have a fire. A simple google search or search of this publications archives would have verified.

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HAF

I read years ago that these buildings (all built/developed around the same time) house several businesses but share a crawl/attic space that runs the entire building. When a fire starts, it gets up into that space and immediately spreads. Firefighters can’t get up there and getting on the roof is dangerous. Once the fire is in the crawl space, it’s already out of control.

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Jack

Wow, someone in Sunnyside who doesn’t think every fire here is a conspiracy to build a condo.

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C'mon baby light my fire

Let me guess. This paves the way for another large glass and steel high-rise condo on prime real estate.

I hope the FDNY arson squad investigates this thoroughly.

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