Fire Breaks Out at Vacant North Park Home

Firefighters confronted a wall and a collapsed staircase while attempting to battle a fire at a vacant North Park home Wednesday afternoon.

The Long Beach Fire Department received a call at 3:44 p.m. about a fire at 171 E. Fulton St., between Long Beach Boulevard and Riverside Boulevard, and when firefighters arrived at the scene they encountered flames blowing out of all the windows at the rear of the house, said Chief Richard Corbett.

The firefighters decided to attack the fire from the interior, by running a hose through the front door, but once inside they encountered a cinder block wall that sealed off the back apartment. They repositioned the hose through the back door and found that a staircase had collapsed inside, hampering their efforts to get to the second floor. They extinguished the fire on the first floor before making their way upstairs.

“We laid a couple of ladders where the stairs used to be and we made it upstairs and put the rest of the fire out,” Corbett said.

Firefighters contained the different pockets of fire within about an hour, he said.

The vacant house appeared to have been used by homeless people, Corbett said, but no one was home at the time of the fire. Firefighters believe the blazed started on the first floor and traveled upstairs. The cause of the fire is unknown but is under investigation by the Nassau County Fire Marshall.

One firefighter injured his shoulder and another injured his ankle, and both were transported to Long Beach Medical Center and may be released Wednesday night, Corbett said.  

In a separate incident during the fire, a motorist hit a bicyclist a few blocks away, at the corner of Long Beach Boulevard and East Park Avenue. The cyclist, a male in his late 20s, suffered minor injuries and was transported to the medical center by a Point Lookout-Lido Fire Department ambulance. The accident was unrelated to the fire, Corbett said.