Fire rips through RVC apartment

Imagine that you’re living in an apartment complex, and fire breaks out two floors above you –– and you’re unaware that it’s raging.

That’s precisely what one resident of the three-story apartment building at 145 Maple Ave. in Rockville Centre said happened to him on Oct. 1, after a fire ignited in an apartment on the complex’s top floor. The blaze heavily damaged the unit and reportedly caused water damage in two others.

The disabled resident, who asked not to be identified, lives in a ground-floor unit with his 25-year-old son, and was watching TV on his couch as the fire burned above him.

Residents called the fire in to 911 at 4:45 p.m., according to Rockville Centre Fire Department officials.

“I was lying, watching TV,” the resident recalled. “Nobody told me, ‘Get out.’ Nobody said anything. I heard, ‘bang.’ I looked out my kitchen window and I saw a burnt couch, so I assumed it came from upstairs. Then I see this [volunteer firefighter]. When I saw him pointing at the roof, I put two and two together. I put my boot on, and I go out and I see like five fire trucks and 40 firemen and police.”

He added that the fire was already out by the time he left the building.

“I didn’t see fire,” he said. “I saw black and windows and the couch and whatever else in the driveway. I looked up, and they had the cherry-picker to the roof, and [the firefighters] were climbing in the windows.”

His apartment was one of two to be locked down temporarily after water from the top floor leaked into the apartments, causing damage.

“The next thing I know, I go back into the apartment and I smell all the must,” he said. “At this point, my bathroom is flooded, the kitchen is flooded with two inches of water.”

A neighbor who lived in a corner unit on the second floor, who also requested anonymity, said he was in his kitchen when he noticed the fire.

“I see white smoke wafting out of my window,” he said. “I go downstairs and back around to see if someone was barbecuing, and I look up and it was this apartment. Smoke was billowing out of it.”

The resident said the apartment where the fire started was in “squalor” for a long time, so it was not surprising that the blaze originated there. “There was cat feces all over the place, kitty litter all over the place,” he said. “And his electricity was turned off. We couldn’t get him out of there.”

The resident added that the occupant of the third-floor unit had left the complex before his apartment went up in flames. He returned, saw the emergency vehicles and asked about the well-being of his cat, which was reportedly rescued unharmed.

An initial investigation revealed that the fire started in the living room of the apartment. According to Chief Fire Inspector Pete Klugewicz, the cause of the blaze was undetermined at press time.

Rockville Centre First Assistant Chief Brian Cook was first on the scene. He immediately called in a working fire to his dispatcher.

Firefighters stretched two hose lines into the apartment to extinguish the blaze.

“While the entire department worked in a well-coordinated effort to extinguish the blaze,” Fire Chief Robert Seaman said, “it is significant to note that Reliance Hose Company No. 3 was the first company on scene with their brand new pumper, making it the first fire it operated at since recently being put into service.”

The Oceanside, Lynbrook, Lakeview, Baldwin, South Hempstead and East Rockaway fire departments provided mutual aid.