By Joseph Kellard
Seventeen nearby fire departments were called to assist the Oceanside Fire Department in fighting the fire, including the Merrick and North Bellmore departments.
The blaze broke out at a warehouse across a parking lot from the company's main building, at 2525 Long Beach Road, at about 3:50 a.m. on June 29.
Ten firefighters, nine from Oceanside and one from Baldwin, were rushed to the burn unit at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow with first- and second-degree burns on the face, head and ears. The other firefighters, who suffered smoke inhalation or heat exhaustion, were sent to South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside or Long Beach Hospital.
"When we arrived, the fire was coming through the roof of the building," said John Traverso, Oceanside's fire chief.
About 12 minutes after firefighters arrived, an acetylene tank exploded inside the building.
"You could see the bricks on the building starting to buckle, and once that happened, we pulled our men out of the building," Traverso said about the first of two explosions. The Oceanside dispatcher at fire headquarters notified the chief that propane tanks were on the premises.
After the explosion, all but five or six firefighters, who were "very close" to the explosion, evacuated the warehouse, Traverso said. "When the explosion occurred, the roof went up and then came right back down and collapsed," he said. "Immediately after the explosion, we called 15 ambulances to the scene."
Traverso estimated that about 20 minutes after the first explosion, a propane tank exploded. Seven minutes after the second explosion, a warehouse wall collapsed, "which sounded like an explosion," the chief said.
Traverso said firefighters contained the fire within two hours, and they had it extinguished in another half-hour. He added that firefighters found six more propane tanks inside the warehouse.
Detectives from Nassau County's Arson/Bomb Squad and investigators from the Fire Marshal's Office determined that spontaneous combustion caused the first explosion. Hot laundry linens, which were brought over from the main facility to be stored in the warehouse, combined n with the industrial-strength detergents, suddenly burst into flames. The fire's intense heat caused three acetylene tank valves to fail. The acetylene escaped into the air, causing the explosion.
Taking precautions, police evacuated eight families from apartments on Long Beach Road and eight families from nearby houses, none of which experienced any serious damage.
"It shook the house like an earthquake," Phyllis Kudlek, who lives behind the warehouse, told the Herald from her living room, where a large painting had fallen off her wall. "I woke up about 3 a.m. to turn the air conditioner up and started to smell something strange. Then about 4 a.m., while I was sleeping, I heard the explosion. I didn't think that it had anything to do with the strange smell. I went outside and saw my neighbors outside."
Jon Simpkins, Kudlek's neighbor, said, "I was sleeping at the time of the explosion and it shook my house and woke me up. I had the windows shut with the AC on, and the windows rattled. I thought that maybe a car exploded. I went outside and just saw this huge plume of smoke."
The warehouse also housed Orzano Industries Automotive and neighbored Cibelli's Mason Supplies, the latter of which experienced serious damage. "The fire caused extensive flooding to our store," said John Turkac, Cibelli's manager.
Traverso said on Monday that about 60 to 70 Oceanside firefighters responded to the blaze, and those most seriously injured were expected to remain in the hospital for the next three to five days.
Other fire departments that battled the blaze were: Island Park, Rockville Centre, Long Beach, Baldwin, Freeport, Point Lookout, East Rockaway, Hewlett, Levittown, Woodmere, Valley Stream, Elmont, Malverne, Hempstead and South Hempstead.
