Trinity Bar Building Erupts In Flames

Citizens hoping to rescue a man on fire raced into the Trinity Bar building on Orange Street as it erupted into flames Friday afternoon.

[Update @6:08 p.m.: Fire investigators found a fuel tank in a upstairs apartment that they believe may have played a role in the blaze.]

The fire broke out around 1:54 p.m. on an upper floor of the three-story brick building at 157 Orange St. next to Pitkin Plaza. Trinity Bar & Restaurant is on the first floor, apartments above.

A third-floor tenant (who declined to be named or to photographed) said she rushed out a back door when she heard the fire alarm go off.

“I ran out,” she said. ​“I saw a guy burning. I tried to get him out. He wouldn’t move; he was on the fire escape.” She gave up and fled down a fire escape to safety.

A mechanic named Angel Feliciano (pictured) happened to be across the street waiting to meet his girlfriend when he saw the flames and heard yelling that a man was inside. He rushed to his car, got a hammer, and forced his way inside, he said.

“I could hear the screaming,” he said. He rushed upstairs but was unable to reach the man.

Matt Feiner and Johnny Brehon of Devil’s Gear bike shop on the block also heard the screaming. ​“They kept saying there was someone inside,” Feiner said. So he grabbed a fire extinguisher, and the two rushed upstairs into the Trinity building.

They encountered blinding smoke. It became hard to breathe.

“Finally, ​“I said, ’ Dude, we’ve got to blow,’” Brehon said, so the two retreated back into the crowd gathered on Pitkin Plaza.

Chief John Alston Jr. and Engine 4 of the New Haven Fire Department arrived on the scene and immediately got to work dousing the flames. Smoke engulfed the block down to Chapel Street.

It took firefighters just under an hour to get the blaze under control at about 2:48 p.m., Alston said. Once it was under control, fire investigators headed inside the building seeking to determine a cause of the blaze. The Red Cross also was on the scene to help tenants with relocation. (Alston later reported that investigators found an unspecified ​“fuel tank” in an upstairs apartment ​“that may have fed the fire.”)

Alston said the burn victim told firefighters that he ​“woke up and saw flames.” The man told firefighter that he walked through a window to the fire escape. That’s where firefighters found him and rescued him, Alston said.

The burn victim is in critical condition at the hospital, Alston said. He put his chances at ​“50 – 50.” A second person went to the hospital for smoke inhalation, Alston said. (Alston later reported at 6 p.m. that the victim, who has burns over 70 percent of his body, has been transported to the Bridgeport Hospital burn unit.)

Asked at the scene if any firefighters were injured, Alston said, ​“None, thank God.”

Trinity’s owner, who was present in the crowd watching the firefighters tackle the blaze, declined comment.

Trinity Bar wasn’t that crowded when the fire started, with only about 15 employees and customers present, during the lull between lunch and happy hour, said bartender Jess Howe.

When the smoke alarms went off, everyone thought it was a false alarm at first, Howe said. But once outside, she could see flames on the second floor.

Howe worried about the staff’s jobs and the survival of the downtown watering-hole.

“It sucks. This is everyone’s livelihood; it’s what they do. Now, we all don’t have jobs,” she said. ​“And 90 percent of our customers are regulars. They’re our friends and family. This was a meeting place that we won’t be meeting at for the near future.”

Milea DiLeone, a server down the block at Tikkaway Grill, said she heard an explosion and screaming. When DiLeone stepped outside, she saw flames in the window, getting ​“bigger and bigger.” The fire punched through windows and looked like it was throwing out pieces of wood, concrete, and glass, she said. Then, the whole street was engulfed in black smoke that rose in a tower over downtown, she said.

Click this video to see the fire in real time.

Joe Ugly contributed to this story.