N. Merrick F.D. saves man from burning home

The North Merrick Fire Department’s quick response saved a 38-year-old man who was asleep in a burning Maeder Avenue home on Thursday morning, according to James Rogers, the North Merrick fire chief.

The call came in at 8:20 a.m. on Feb. 25. Rogers was first to arrive at the modest, one-story home. The chief found two elderly women screaming that a man was downstairs. Rogers attempted to reach him but was pushed back by the overwhelming black smoke billowing from what he called an illegal basement apartment.

Two dozen firefighters soon arrived in two engines, a rescue truck and ambulance. Two firefighters with air packs crawled into the man’s makeshift bedroom and felt their way through the smoke to his bed, where he was sound asleep. The firefighters, who were not identified, pulled the man to safety.

“It was heavy, heavy smoke,” Rogers said. “It was black all the way down to the floor.”

The man suffered smoke inhalation and was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment, but he survived. “If not for the effort of the fire department, this man would have perished, no doubt,” Rogers said.

Firefighters needed only 10 minutes to extinguish the blaze, which caused extensive damage throughout the basement. Because the house had an illegal apartment, Town of Hempstead Building Department inspectors were called in. They declared the house unsafe and uninhabitable, at least for now, Rogers said. They issued several summonses for safety violations to the homeowners, one of whom was the man’s mother and the other, his aunt. The women are now living with relatives.

The Nassau County fire marshal was called in to determine a cause of the blaze. No other injuries were reported.