A New York City hospital was ablaze for an hour on Friday, with two people reported injured as firefighters battled the rooftop flames and huge black plumes of smoke billowed into the sky.
The two-alarm fire was reported at the 257-bed St. John's Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway, Queens at 5:15 pm, a New York Fire Department spokesman told DailyMail.com.
Twenty-five units responded, with 106 firefighters and other first responders on the scene.
Two civilians were injured, he said, but the extent of their injuries is unclear. The fire was on the exterior roof, he said, and it was unclear how it began.
The thick cloud of black smoke billowing out across Rockaway beach was visible from Manhattan, 20 miles away.
The hospital, founded 110 years ago, is described on its website as the only facility providing 'emergency and ambulatory care to the densely populated, culturally and economically diverse, and medically underserved populations of the Rockaways and Five Towns in southern Queens County and southwestern Nassau County, New York.'
Video shared on social media showed people running out of the hospital.
Some medics in their scrubs were standing outside the facility, filming and photographing the roof on fire.
RHM/PR