Nassau County officials have yet to determine the cause of a fire that broke out on Saturday, Feb. 5 at a commercial building in Flower Hill.
(Photos by Catherine Teevan for The Roslyn News)
According to Nassau County police department officials, the fire, which collapsed an entire three-story brick building on 1025 Northern Blvd., was first reported at 5:45 p.m. By 9 p.m., the entire building was engulfed in a blaze and both the second and third floors of the structure collapsed.
According to detectives, officers responding to the Northern Boulevard for a possible fire, observed smoke emanating from the entire commercial building making it impossible to enter.
Both Roslyn Rescue and Roslyn Highlands responded to assist in extinguishing the fire from the three-story commercial building. By 1:30 p.m., fire crews from both companies spent more than 12 hours battling the fire.
Ronald Collura Jr., first assistant fire chief with the Roslyn Rescue Fire Department, told the media that both Roslyn fire crews arrived to hook up fire hoses to spray water through the top of the roof down into the rest of the building.
By Sunday morning, fire crews were still cooling off minor blazes throughout the building.
“With the size of the building, there were some difficult spots that we really couldn’t get to,” Collura told the media. “You had partial or most of the whole roof collapsed in, but with the thick membrane on some of the roof that was still intact, it was hard to get to some of those hot spots underneath.”
While the damage to the building was total, no one was in the three-story structure when the blaze was ignited. The only injuries, Nassau County police said, were to three first responders. Those firefighters, detectives said, were transported to local area hospitals where they were treated and released. Additionally on scene were Nassau County Fire Marshall Chief Uttaro, accompanied by the Fire Marshall Hazmat Office, Fire Marshall Investigators Office, the Office of Emergency Management, Fire Chief Williams, Arson Bomb Squad Detectives and Sixth Squad detectives.
And there were plenty of first responders. No less than 37 fire companies and 125 firefighters answered the call. By 6 p.m., police closed off Northern Boulevard to all traffic from Port Washington Boulevard to Middle Neck Road. By 7:30 p.m., the fire had been updated to four-alarm status.
The Roslyn Medical Office building was home to such establishments as North Shore Restorative & Implant Dentistry, Gold Coast Prosthodontics of Long Island, and Flower Hill Dental Group.
