TWO BADLY HURT, 70 LEFT HOMELESS IN BROOKLYN FIRE

Two people were in critical condition and 70 were homeless last night after a fire — which may have been started by kids playing with candles — ripped through a Brooklyn apartment building.

The three-alarm blaze broke out just before 6 p.m. on the second floor of the seven-story building at 5455 Kings Highway in East Flatbush.

“It was like an oven,” said Deputy Fire Chief Artie Messbauer. “Fire was blowing out the windows on the second floor, and extended to the third floor.

“It was really fast moving, and with the snow and the freezing cold, it just made it that much harder.”

The critically injured residents were a 13-year-old girl and a 33-year-old woman, whose names were not immediately released. They were rushed to nearby Brookdale Hospital.

Lt. Richard Flood and two firefighters, Mike Haddican and Andy Sochinski, rescued the woman.

“We found her in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors,” Flood said.

“She wasn’t breathing and she had some real bad exposure to smoke. We just pulled her out and brought her down to the lobby and gave her CPR.”

Firefighters had to contend with “horrendous” weather, including freezing rain, said Flood. “There was very dense fire and smoke,” he said. “It was pretty chaotic.”

Fifteen residents and two firefighters were slightly hurt.

The cause of the blaze was not immediately determined, but officials were looking into reports that it began in an apartment where youngsters were playing with candles.

It took an hour to bring the fire under control.

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