Updated

Chief: cause of West End blaze still unknown

Posted
Courtesy Joe Tuccillo and Owen Waters

The Long Beach Fire Department was alerted to a building fire on the corner of New Hampshire Street and West Beech Street at 3:05 p.m. on March 21, according to Fire Chief RJ Tuccillo.

Firefighters rushed to the scene and saw heavy smoke coming from the front of Beech Street Taxi. They entered the building, confined the fire to a back utility room and quickly extinguished it in 20 minutes.

“There was a lot of smoke damage in the whole building,” Tuccillo said.

About 40 firefighters responded to the scene for about an hour, inspecting the building after the fire was extinguished to make sure the fire didn’t extend to the walls or the attic. The building sustained damage from the heavy, black smoke produced by the burning spare tires that were stored in the utility room.

“Because of the tires burning, it made a lot of black, nasty smoke...it looked a lot worse than it was,” Tuccillo said. “It looked like the whole building was on fire, but it was just that one room. [The business owners] were very lucky.”

There were cigarette butts and car batteries in the room, but the cause of the fire remains unknown. The Nassau County Fire Marshal deemed the fire “unfounded.”

“They really couldn’t figure it out,” Tuccillo said. “They weren’t sure what it was.”

No injuries were reported.

Pammy Cake Creations, a neighboring business housed in the same building as Beech Street Taxi, sustained only minimal damage.

“Thankfully we didn’t really have too much damage,” owner Pamela Kreutzberg said. “We share the boiler room with [Beech Street Taxi] so we had no heat or hot water for a few days, which is why we had to close.”

She lost a small amount of product but sustained no smoke or physical damage. Her business was partially open on Friday to serve coffee and relay pick-up orders, and opened fully on Saturday, after products were re-stocked.

“The [health department] came in and gave her a clean bill of health,” Tuccillo said.