New York City, Fire | featured news

A huge fire destroyed 80 to 100 houses in a flooded beachfront neighborhood Tuesday, forcing firefighters to undertake daring rescues and injuring three people. More than 190 firefighters contained the blaze but were still putting out some pockets of fire more than nine hours after it erupted.

Firefighters will spend the next two weeks setting homes ablaze on a small island in New York Harbor for one purpose: Saving lives. Eighteen abandoned townhouses on New York City's Governor's Island, formerly housing for members of the Coast Guard, have been turned into a setting for roaring fires in experiments aimed to develop new strategies firefighters can use to save lives.