A courageous passer-by ran into a smoke-filled Harlem building last night, kicked down a door and rescued a 9-year-old girl, her father and the building’s superintendent from a blaze that he admittedly couldn’t even see.
William Kindred, 20, and a friend were walking past 541 W. 148th St. at about 6 p.m. when they heard a woman yell, “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Without hesitation, young Kindred dashed into the building.
Once inside, he “heard screaming [from a closed second-floor apartment], so I kicked the door open.”
“The smoke rushed us, and I couldn’t see,” he said. “I picked up a fire extinguisher, but I didn’t see any fire.”
The girl suffered burns to one arm. Her dad and the super escaped with minor injuries.
An FDNY official said the men had been redoing the floors in the apartment when some vapors caught fire, possibly from a pilot light.