By Joseph Kellard
The fire broke out at a warehouse across a parking lot from the company's main building, at 2525 Long Beach Rd., at approximately 3:50 a.m. on June 29. The Oceanside Fire Department and about 16 surrounding departments responded to the scene.
Ten firefighters, nine from Oceanside and one from Baldwin, were transported to the burn unit at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow with first- and second-degree burns about the face, head and ears. The other firefighters, who suffered either smoke inhalation or heat exhaustion, were sent to either South Nassau Communities Hospital or Long Beach Hospital.
"When we arrived, the fire was coming through the roof of the building," said John Traverso, chief of the OFD.
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 dispatcher from OFD headquarters notified him that there were propane tanks on the premises.
At the time of the explosion, all firefighters had evacuated the warehouse, except five or six who were "very close," 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 estimates that about 20 minutes after the first explosion, a propane tank exploded. Seven minutes after this second explosion, a wall of the warehouse collapsed, "which sounded like an explosion," he explained.
Traverso said the fire took about two hours to contain, and about another half hour later it was extinguished. 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 Marshall's Office responding to the scene determined that the first explosion was caused by spontaneous combustion. Hot laundry linens, which were brought over from the main facility to be stored in the warehouse, in combination with the industrial-strength detergents, spontaneously burst into flames. The intense heat of the fire 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 damages.
"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."
"I was sleeping at the time of the explosion and it shook my house and woke me up," said Jon Simpkins, Kudlek's neighbor. "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, manager of Cibelli's.
Traverso said on Monday that about 60 to 70 Oceanside firefighters were on the scene, and those most seriously injured are expected to remain in the hospital for the next three to five days.
In addition to the OFD, the fire departments that responded were Island Park, Rockville Centre, Long Beach, Baldwin, Freeport, Point Lookout, East Rockaway, Hewlett, Levittown, Woodmere, North Belmore, Merrick, Valley Stream, Elmont, Malverne, Hempstead, and South Hempstead.
H: 'We're all in good spirits'
S: Hempstead supervisor bestows medals on injured firefighters at NUMC
Photos by James Esher
By JOSEPH KELLARD
We'll be back.
So said Gary Fish, a lieutenant with the Oceanside Fire Department, who was among 10 firefighters taken to Nassau University Medical Center after an acetylene tank exploded as they battled a fire in a warehouse owned by Oceanside Institutional Industries, a hospital laundry service on Long Beach Road.
"All that I remember is that we were fighting the fire in one of the rooms from the outside, and as we were putting water on the fire the next think I heard was a boom, and then I went flying," Fish said. "Then a few seconds later, I remember being carried out from there by about four or five people."
"I feel that everyone in the fire department knows what the story is, and I think we'll all be back," Fish told a crowd of reporters in the Public Affairs Conference Room at NUMC on Monday.
With bandages wrapped around a hand that received first- and second-degree burns, Fish said that in his 21 years with the department he'd heard stories about fighting fires similar to what he'd experienced last Sunday morning, but never had he come face to face with one himself.
"It gives me a thought [about leaving the department], but I'm going to stay with it," Fish vowed as he was released from the hospital.
"When I first learned that 22 of us had gone to the hospital, I was in shock and disbelief at the magnitude of this. I'm pretty much in shock that we didn't get badly hurt more than we did," said Fish.
All the firefighters admitted to NUMC sustained similar facial, neck and scalp injuries, said Dr. Lou Riina.
Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray visited Fish and all the Oceanside and Baldwin firefighters at NUMC and presented them with the town's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal.
"This medal is a very, very small token of appreciation for these men who literally put their lives on the line each and every day," Murray said. "This was a perfect but very unfortunate example of what they will do and the lengths they are willing to go to to protect our communities."
Murray has given the Distinguished Service Medal to people involved in life-saving scenarios, such as the firefighters at the World Trade Center two Septembers ago and town bay constables.
"What I was amazed at was the upbeat attitude of all these firefighters," Murray said just minutes after coming down from the hospital's burn unit.
She said that one of the injured men, a city firefighter for more than 30 years, told her that the fire on Sunday was the worst he'd ever experienced. "That certainly speaks volumes about the dangerous nature of this fire," Murray noted. "Yet despite that kind of a feeling, this firefighter in the next breath said, 'But we'll all get through this, we're all talking, we're all in good spirits and we'll get back to the job as soon as we can.'"
