By Jeff Lipton
The building's second floor was occupied by a cabinetmaker, who had hundreds of gallons of paint thinner and other flammable liquids stored there, fire officials said.
"If the fire would have went up there, it would have been a disaster," said Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Chief John Heidrich. "There was all highly flammable stuff. The guys did a tremendous job, second to none. If they were not as aggressive as they were getting to the second floor, we would have lost the entire building."
No one was reported injured in the Dec. 3 blaze, which broke out at about 8:15 p.m. in the three-story commercial structure at 206 Rockaway Turnpike, off Pearsall Avenue. Besides the cabinetmaker, the building was being used as a showroom for Spitz & Peck Florists.
Heidrich said the fire was reported by one of his firefighters, who happened to be driving by while on his job as a FedEx worker. He spotted the smoke billowing from the building and called it in.
A man, his wife and their 6-month-old baby, who were living in a second-floor apartment, managed to escape the burning building before firefighters arrived, Heidrich said.
"When we pulled up, there was a tremendous amount of fire on the first floor of the building," Heidrich said. "Black smoke was pouring out of the entire building."
The firefighters were greeted by a huge fireball as they forced open the front door, officials said. They worked their way to the second floor when they learned that a family lived there and might be trapped. They conducted a search of the second and third floors, but found no one in the building.
Firefighters contained the fire to the first floor and were able to knock it down after about half an hour. They stayed on the scene for about 90 minutes to make sure it was fully extinguished.
"The guys made some stop," said Heidrich. "They did an unbelievable job."
About 50 firefighters from the Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department battled the blaze. Support was provided by the Inwood, Woodmere and Valley Stream fire departments.
The cause of the blaze has not yet been determined. The fire is still under investigation, but it is not considered suspicious, said Investigator George Laakso of the Nassau County Fire Marshal's office. "The fire was confined to the area of origin, a room in the front of the building on the first floor," he said.
"They did a very good job," Laakso said of the firefighters' aggressive attack on the blaze. "It's an old building, and my understanding is that there were a lot of combustibles up there [on the second floor]. They made a very good stop."
The Party Source, adjacent to Spitz & Peck, sustained heavy smoke damage. "We have no phones, no nothing," said one employee, who did not want to be identified. "Everything is down."
"My main concern is that, thank God, there was nobody hurt," said the building's owner, who identified himself only as Evan. "Everything else can be fixed. My main job now is to get everybody up and running again. The extent of the fire was not that bad."
The blaze caused between $100,000 and $200,000 in damage, fire officials said.
Officials from the Village of Cedarhurst Buildings Department inspected the building to determine whether it was structurally sound, and were awaiting a report from the fire marshal.
"The fire department did a fabulous job getting the fire under control," said Richard Burke of the Buildings Department. "We did a walk-through for safety purposes. There was mostly smoke and water damage."
