Woman leaps from 11th-floor ledge into firefighter’s arms as Berlin high-rise burns

As a furious blaze raged inside a high-rise apartment building in Berlin, one woman was rescued by scaling the building’s exterior and taking a terrifying leap more than two stories down to safety.

As a furious blaze raged inside a high-rise apartment building in Berlin, one woman was rescued by scaling the building’s exterior and taking a terrifying leap more than two stories down to safety.

The fire erupted in an 18-story residential high-rise building in the German capital’s Friedrichshain neighborhood around 6:30 a.m. Friday, The Associated Press reported.

The blaze started in an apartment on the 11th floor and spread to the apartment above it, with flames shooting from several windows and thick, black smoke pluming from the building, Berlin police said.

Authorities described the response as “especially strenuous and requiring a significant number of personnel” given the number of people affected and the scale of the fire.Christophe Gateau / dpa/picture alliance via Getty ImagesThe dramatic rescue, captured on video, shows a woman in sweatpants scaling the exterior of an 11th-floor apartment, edging perilously along a window ledge as giant orange flames and black smoke billow from the apartment beside her.

Two floors below her outside, a firefighter is seen in the basket of a turntable ladder used for elevated rescues.