It was not immediately clear how many residents could not be located amid the fire in Spring Valley, said Trooper Steven Nevel of New York Police Troop F around 4 p.m. It was also not known whether residents were injured or killed.
The firefighter went missing about an hour earlier in the fire in Lafayette Street, Nevel said.
Another firefighter suffered a heart attack and was taken to a hospital with injuries.
Police sent emergency services, including one K9 unit and supervisors, and elderly people from the center are being driven out of the area, Nevel told CNN. Spring Valley is about 40 miles north of downtown Manhattan.
Elderly people in wheelchairs have been evacuated from danger
They “literally ran in and helped the seniors,” Green said as flames continued to burn through the building behind him. “There were a lot of good Samaritans here, about eight of them who literally ran into the building and brought them in wheelchairs, walked and literally picked them up and physically removed them from the danger.”
Residents were placed in a school bus while their home burned down, Greed told WCBS.
“They were speechless. It was really traumatic to see it,” he said. “They were very traumatic to look at their facility and set their house on fire.”
Firefighters flooded the building with large flames tearing through the remains of the structure.
Raymond Rodriguez was living in his uncle’s apartment near the senior center when the fire broke out, he told CNN’s subsidiary WABC.
Rodriguez could see firefighters pulling two people from the fire, he said.
“This is just a sad day for the residents of the city,” he told WABC, adding that firefighters evacuated people to the courtyard of the building where he was staying while fighting the fire.
The vinyl board of the apartment building looks melted and crooked, shows WABC video.
Charles Crippen, who lives in the building with the molten sideline, was prepared to leave his home if the fire spread, he said.
“It’s pretty devastating,” he told WABC. “There are a lot of old people who lived there, disabled people and things like that, and they’re all out of a house now.”
CNN contacted several agencies and officials for more information.
This is an evolving story and will be updated.