efd1674

Members
 View profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    91

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by efd1674

  4. Posted · Edited by Truck4

    Date: 03-05-08

    Time: 0900hrs

    Location: 100 Moser St.

    Units:

    Description: Fire in the basement of a P/D. (3) Firefighters trapped in the basement. (2) Removed by RIT. (1) later located after heavy fire conditions and pronounced at the hospital.

    Writer: efd1674, Truck4

    http://www.nbc10.com/news/15500169/detail.html?dl=mainclick

    www.phillyfirenews.com

  22. Posted

    Man dies in Kent house fire; owner was retired NYPD sergeant

    By TERENCE CORCORAN

    THE JOURNAL NEWS

    (Original publication: February 15, 2007)

    KENT - The body of a man who died in a house fire on Route 301 early yesterday was so badly burned that it will have to be identified through medical records, police said.

    "We're still working to identify the victim and notify family members," said Kent Sgt. Jerry Ranieri, who said he didn't expect to make identification until today at the earliest.

    Neighbors said the house at 2713 Route 301 belonged to Thomas Szewczyk, 59, a retired New York City police sergeant and Vietnam veteran.

    Firefighters found the victim's body in the rear of the one-story house just west of Peekskill Hollow Road, Kent Fire Chief Mike Christiansen said. A pet cat and dog also died in the fire.

    Set on a hill away from the road, the structure was destroyed by the roughly 2:30 a.m. blaze. All that remained was the foundation and a chimney.

    It was the third fire in Putnam County this week and the second to gut a private residence.

    Neighbors said they tried frantically to rouse the man, but the heat and flames were too intense. Next-door neighbor Sam Ferranto said he awoke around 2:30 a.m. and looked out his window to see an orange glow.

    "It was snowing and I wasn't sure what I saw, so I asked my wife and she said it looks like the house next door is on fire," Ferranto said.

    Ferranto said he grabbed a lacrosse stick he had and ran next door, banging on the outside walls of the burning house in a desperate effort to wake his neighbor.

    "In minutes, the heat was so intense that I had to back away," he said. "I was hoping that no one was home."

    John Del Duca, a 45-year-old sheet-metal worker who lives next door on the other side of the house, said he got up around the same time to see the night aglow with flames.

    "It was just lit up," Del Duca said. "I ran outside but I couldn't get past the property line. The fire was so hot."

    Del Duca and his mother, Carol, said the house is owned by Szewczyk. Carol Del Duca described him as a good neighbor who usually kept to himself but offered to help if he sees them working in the yard. They said he has lived there for decades and has three adult children: a son and two daughters.

    "He's a good guy. He'll do anything for you," Carol Del Duca said. "He is always very pleasant."

    "He'd come over to borrow our hose from time to time. He's a nice guy. We're just hoping he wasn't home," John Del Duca said.

    Szewczyk has been involved with veterans issues in Putnam County. He worked with a group of former servicemen and state lawmakers to rename a stretch of Interstate 84 the Putnam County Veterans Memorial Highway and he was one of four Putnam Vietnam vets who traveled to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Veterans Day 1987 to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

    A New York City Police Department spokesman said Szewczyk retired in October 1993 as a sergeant after 20 years on the job. He worked at Manhattan's 26th Precinct.

    Christiansen, the Kent fire chief, said the house was fully involved when firefighters arrived around 2:40 a.m. He immediately called for assistance. The Carmel, Lake Carmel and Mahopac fire departments went to the fire while a crew from Patterson stood by at the Kent firehouse.

    The location of the house - set back on a hill with no driveway - made it particularly challenging for firefighters to reach the blaze, Christiansen said. No firefighter was hurt.

    "We had to stretch lines up the hill. That, coupled with the cold weather, made it very difficult," he said.

    The blaze was quickly extinguished, although Kent firefighters didn't clear the scene until around 9 a.m.

    Kent police and the Putnam County Cause and Investigation Team will determine the cause of the fire, the third major blaze in Putnam County in as many days.

    The Belle Levine Arts Center in Mahopac was destroyed by fire late Sunday night. A Southeast family lost its Peach Lake home Tuesday. No one was injured in those fires.

  25. Posted

    Senior citizen dies in overnight fire in Mount Vernon

    (Original publication: February 4, 2007)

    A resident of a senior citizens' complex died after an overnight fire tore through their S. 5th Avenue building, fire officials confirmed this morning.

    Report of a working structure fire at 150 S. 5th Ave. came in around 11 p.m. The location is between 2nd Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard West.

    Deputy Fire Chief Thomas Duffy said the fire resulted in a single fatality on the second floor. Further information was not immediately available.