Public safety

Officials probe 'suspicious' fire in Merrick

Reports: Convicted sex offender was to move in

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The Nassau County Fire Marshal and Arson and Bomb Squad are investigating the cause of a “suspicious” fire that destroyed a home that was under construction on Yale Road in Merrick on May 23, according to Ron Luparello, a Merrick Fire Department spokesman.

Fliers found outside the home claimed that the incoming resident was a registered sex offender. According to past reports, the man, whose name the Herald withheld at press time because no official confirmation of his identity had been received, was reportedly convicted of second-degree rape in August 2013. Allegedly, he was a teacher who had had an affair with a 13-year old student.

The Merrick Fire Department responded to the call at 3:35 a.m. A 7th Precinct police officer on routine patrol had spotted the blaze and called it in.

“When units arrived, the house was fully engulfed,” Luparello said, adding that the intense heat from the fire blackened the wooden siding of the house to the right and cracked one of its windows, melted the frame of the house to its rear and caused significant damage to a nearby car.

“The flames were as intense as anything you could imagine,” said Nat Lipman, a neighbor who was asked by police officers to evacuate his house until the fire was extinguished.

“We always loved to walk by [the house] and see the progress,” said Allison Haug, 35, of Merrick, referring to the walks that she and her newborn daughter took through the neighborhood. “To see it destroyed is so sad.”

Firefighters needed more than three hours put out the fire, with help from the North Merrick, Bellmore and North Bellmore fire departments.