Story & photos by  Ex Captain Steven Grogan

For the third day in a row, firefighters fought a working house fire in Lynbrook.  This was after the volunteers performed stand-by duty for Hurricane Sandy and who answered over 110 fire calls that week from Lynbrook residents while also providing needed firefighting assistance to flooded and battered areas in Island Park and Long Beach.

The third major fire occurred on Saturday evening, November 3rd, shortly after 11:30 PM, when Lynbrook firefighters were called out for reported "fireplace smoke inside a house."  However, when they arrived at the home at 8 Hazel Place heavy black smoke was pouring from the home and the fire in the fireplace was also in the walls of the two story home.  The homeowners fled the house.

First Deputy Chief Edward Hynes was first on the scene and transmitted a Signal 10 for a working fire at the house.   Engine Company 1 and Tally-Ho Engine 3 arrived on the scene and Tally-Ho dropped two hose lines at the hydrant on the corner of Broadway and drove into Hazel, a dead-end street.   Two attack hose lines were taken into the house with Tally-Ho going to the second floor where the fire was quickly spreading up to the roof.  The second line, manned by Engine Company, went to the first floor fireplace area to fight the fire in the walls around the fireplace.   The fire was stopped in the second floor wall after the wall and ceiling was opened up and the fire extinguished before it spread to the attic area and roof.

At the same time Tally-Ho firefighters were fighting the fire on the second floor and Engine Company firefighters were on the first floor trying to get behind the brick floor to ceiling fireplace to get at the fire in the wall, members of Truck Company, using saws, went outside and cut through the siding of the home to get behind the bricks and into the burning wall framing.   Besides the fire found in the walls fire was also found coming out of an electrical socket next to the fireplace.  The owner of the home told firefighters that the fireplace had been lit that evening to warm up the house.   This was also allegedly the first time the fireplace had been used in a very long time. 

Fire Chief Anthony DeCarlo coordinated the firefighting efforts and he said it could not be determined if the fire was caused by the fireplace due to what appeared to be old and crumbling mortar and which had not been used lately, or whether the power coming back on from Hurricane Sandy had anything to do with the cause of the fire as the electric enters the house through the wall behind the fireplace.    Because the fire was also found in the electric socket it appeared the fire caused a short circuit in the transformer opposite the home which then plunged the block back into darkness.  LIPA arrived and turned the rest of the block back on. 

Although the fire was not considered suspicious, Chief DeCarlo asked for a routine Fire Marshal investigation based upon their availability.

Damage was placed at $100,000 and there were no injuries.