Off-duty firefighter saves man seconds before “giant fireball” from exploding lithium battery

A heroic off-duty firefighter saved a man from a smoke-filled Brooklyn apartment Friday morning seconds before a lithium-ion battery exploded into “a giant fireball,” FDNY officials said.

FDNY firefighter Joe Pendergast was heading from his Staten Island home to his fire station in Prospect Lefferts Gardens when he spotted smoke billowing from a Flatbush apartment building.

“I was down the block and I saw smoke. I thought it might be a car fire or something,” Pendergast, 33, said. “Then I got closer and I was able to park right in front of the building. I saw [black smoke] coming out of the windows.”

Flames erupted around 7:30 a.m. inside the first-floor unit of the four-story building on Parkside Ave. near Ocean Ave., about a mile from the Engine 249/Ladder 113 fire station where Pendergast was heading.

When he rushed to the front door, a woman told him that a man was inside, trying to save her nine pups from the second floor of her duplex apartment.

“I opened the door, and I’m trying to size it up, what was going on,” Pendergast recalled. “There was an e-bike right [by the door] and another e-bike that was going up real well, about 15 feet into the apartment. And that’s where the guy was. I think he was trying to reach the second floor where the dogs were.”

After quickly assessing the space and spotting a roughly four foot clear path through the smoke, Pendergast went inside and grabbed the man.

“He took a little bit of convincing to get out. He didn’t want to leave,” Pendergast said. “As we’re coming back… I was pushing him out and that’s when the e-bike… just lit up. It turned into a giant fireball. I was about three feet from the door when that happened so I was able to… shoot out the door and I burned my hand.”

About two to three minutes after Pendergast went inside, more than 50 smoke-eaters from Pendergast’s station arrived.

Firefighters rescued several of the dogs and snuffed out the flames by about 8:30 a.m., officials said. Four pups survived the blaze.

Fire marshals officially determined the lithium-ion batteries ignited the blaze, FDNY officials said.

Medics took Pendergast to NYC Health+Hospitals/ Kings County where he was treated for second-degree burns to his right hand and forearm.

“It’s okay. It’s just blistering up now,” Pendergast said Friday afternoon after leaving the hospital.

A second firefighter was treated at the hospital for minor injuries, FDNY officials said.

Pendergast, a seven-year FDNY veteran, said it was the first time he responded off-duty.

“I was… trying to determine what was possible and what was not. And I wasn’t trying to do anything over the top,” he said. “I was just thinking about what I had to do.”