By JOSEPH KELLARD
More than 200 firefighters from 16 Nassau County departments fought the blaze, which took about five hours to contain and extinguish after the Oceanside Fire Department received a call reporting the fire at 3:33 p.m., according to authorities.
The Long Beach Fire Department contributed two engines, a ladder truck, a floodlight apparatus and a command center truck, along with about 35 volunteer firefighters.
No members of the Long Beach Fire Department were injured, according to former Chief Scott Kemins.
The department's 105-foot ladder tower was set up behind the fire, according to Kemins, and fed water from one of the Long Beach engines. The other Long Beach engine supplied water for an East Rockaway ladder truck on the scene.
"It was entirely a defensive outside operation," said Oceanside Fire Chief Sean Lynch about his decision to prohibit firefighters from entering the building because of the size and intensity of the fire. "We knew when we showed up the amount of fire that was in the structure - that the structure was basically a loss."
The OFD's first assistant chief, Tom McDermott, said that firefighters mostly used fire truck ladders to battle the flames. He said the fire likely started in the rear of the store, behind a wall where the former Foodtown housed its bottle-recycling center.
Two OFD firefighters were treated for minor knee injuries at South Nassau Communities Hospital and released.
Less than 24 hours after the fire, Kevin Powell of the Nassau County Arson and Bomb Squad said the cause of the fire had yet to be determined. "The fire marshal and Arson and Bomb squad are out there now doing a basic fire investigation, starting with eliminating all natural causes of the fire," Powell said Monday. "It was a big fire at a vacant building, so we're looking into a number of different things there."
Janet Flamenco, an employee of Mitchell's diner across the street, said she was walking to work on Long Beach Road at about 3:30 p.m. when she noticed smoke. "I looked and saw it coming from the front of the building," Flamenco said. "I went in the diner and someone there was calling the fire department."
Janet Doll was driving home from her daughter's house on Harrison Avenue, which faces the abandoned building, at about 3:30 when she noticed the fire. "I was leaving and heading to Long Beach Road when I saw all this smoke," Doll said. "There weren't any firemen on the scene at that point."
Some people who were on the scene when the fire was in its early stages said they saw the smoke coming from the building's front south wall, adjacent to the Oceanside Theater. "I saw the smoke coming from the wall near the theater, and it took about an hour before it really started to smoke a lot and the flames began to come through the roof," said Bob Segelken, an Oceanside resident.
"I saw smoke coming from near the movie theater, and then it spread," said Joann Vaiano, a resident of nearby Weeks Avenue. "They had it under control at first, but then some firemen started hitting under the green awning at the front of the store, and something must have fallen, because there was a big puff of smoke, and the fire just got out of control after that."
McDermott said the supermarket was virtually vacant, and the smoke traveled from the rear of the building through the store's wide-open space to the front. "There was smoke all over that place when we pulled up," he said. "The smoke was roaming around in every crack in that place."
McDermott said that because of the way the firefighters fought the blaze, with the use of ladders, the movie theater suffered no damage. "There was a fire wall between the two buildings," he said. "There is some smoke and water damage to the movie theater, but that's all."
Allen Rosenberg, who purchased the Foodtown property six months ago, said he planned to open a row of new stores and possibly a supermarket there. "We'll start again," he said at the scene. "We'll build it up nicer and prettier."
McDermott said the Town of Hempstead's building department responded that night to push all of the hazards from the street, and that a town-contracted demolition company would knock the surviving structure down on Monday.
Comments about this story? JKellard@Liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287
