By JOSEPH KELLARD
A high mound of rubbish, comprising old refrigerators, air conditioners, and landscape materials such as tree branches and bushes, stored in the rear, hangar-like area of the station, caught fire on Monday, Sept. 8.
"There was a very, very large pile of rubbish, almost as big as a house, inside the facility that was fully involved," said Chief John Traverso of the Oceanside Fire Department. "The whole pile was in flames when we got there. Heat, smoke and fire got up into the upper offices and into the roof, with the wooden beams burning up inside there."
According to Traverso, teams of firefighters searching the upper office floors to make sure they were cleared were met by intense heat and smoke. They took out part of the building's roof and some windows to relieve the floors of these dangers, before they were able to gain control of the main fire in the refuse storage area. They used a Town of Hempstead payloader to pull away the refrigerators and air conditioners to get to smaller pockets of fire.
The blaze ignited just before rush hour, at about 3:15 p.m., and due to problems with hydrants on the facility's property, firefighters had to use a pumper across Long Beach Road. The road near the facility was shut down in both directions for about two hours, causing a substantial traffic jam.
"I had no choice but to secure an adequate water supply," Traverso explained. "One of the yard hydrants started to work and then it blew out, and the second one was not working. We used two other yard hydrants, but that wasn't enough to supply enough water for the tower ladders to be put into use." Firefighters were forced to feed 1,800 feet of five-inch hose into the facility from Long Beach Road.
Assisting Oceanside in battling the blaze were Island Park's rapid intervention team, Long Beach's engine truck, Rockville Centre's engine truck and rescue ambulance and Baldwin's tower ladder truck, and East Rockaway supplied a ladder truck to Oceanside's headquarters.
One firefighter from Oceanside was injured after falling down some stairs inside the building during the fire. "He's home resting," Traverso reported last Wednesday. "He has cuts and bruises but he's OK."
The Nassau County Fire Marshall investigated, and determined that the fire was an accident. "Sparks ignited some combustible material," George Laakson, investigator for the Nassau County Fire Marshall, said on Thursday. "Sometimes around old refrigerators there is insulation packing that can be combustible. So when the workers were using the payloader to get ride of this stuff, the metal bucket on the pay louder sparked when it hit the concrete ground. The sparks came in contact with the combustible material on the insulation."
Officials from the Town of Hempstead could not be reached for comment on the matter.
