Serious Fires Strike Lower Hudson Valley

[mllax14 18]

1 killed in fires across Lower Hudson

By KEITH EDDINGS

keddings@thejournalnews.com

THE JOURNAL NEWS

Related news from the Web

Latest headlines by topic:

• Disasters

• Fire

Powered by Topix.net

(Original publication: January 1, 2006)

A boarded-up mansion in Cortlandt that was once part of a 120-acre estate now owned by Westchester County was destroyed in a spectacular midnight fire yesterday that drew more than 100 firefighters from nine departments.

The mansion was among five houses and a small apartment building in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties to be heavily damaged or destroyed by fire since Thursday. Single-family homes burned in New City, Patterson, Armonk and Garrison, and a fire that tore through a rooming house in Spring Valley left four families homeless.

The only fatality was Thursday in Armonk, where Joanne Enke died of smoke inhalation after heavy flames blocked an effort by her son to rescue her. He suffered smoke inhalation and was the only other person injured in the six fires, police and fire officials said.

All the fires were under investigation, but police said an accelerant found in the ruins of the Cortlandt mansion made them certain that blaze was deliberately set.

The first of the fires broke out about 3 p.m. Thursday at 71 S. Mountain Pass Road in Garrison. The couple who own the home were not home. The house was destroyed.

About the same time, four families were running from the Spring Valley rooming house at 16 N. Main St., where fire and water damage destroyed two of the building's three floors.

Nine hours later, Chris Enke found his house at 5 Leatherman Court in Armonk ablaze when he returned home just before midnight, said North Castle police Sgt. R. Barnett. The house was destroyed.

In Patterson yesterday morning, fire destroyed most of a 4,100-square-foot hillside home at 22 Quaker Manor Lane, Patterson First Assistant Chief Jim Fredericks said.

Fredericks said the homeowners had had a child and were in Putnam Hospital Center in Carmel when the fire broke out about 10:45 a.m. Late yesterday, firefighters were using a backhoe to move blackened rubble and check for burning embers. The house had been listed for sale for $839,700.

No one was injured in the fire at 3 Auburn Drive in New City yesterday, but a dog died.

The New City Fire Department arrived at 2:36 p.m. to find heavy flames billowing out the front door and second-floor windows, Chief Jason Goldsmith said.

"Within 15 to 20 minutes we had the fire more or less knocked down," he said.

It was not known how many people were displaced. The residents did not want to comment.

The Cortlandt mansion was the only building that was vacant, but its distance from the road and the lack of fire hydrants may have made it the most difficult fire to fight. Four tankers shuttled water up a winding driveway to the house at 10 Croton Dam Road.

Also, firefighters had to run from the fire shortly after arriving at 12:20 a.m. when one of two 250-pound propane tanks exploded.

"When we got there, it was clear it was going to be a defensive fire rather than an offensive fire," said Croton-on-Hudson Fire Chief William Vlad. "Once we heard those (propane tanks) purging themselves, we pulled everybody back."

By early yesterday afternoon, the house was a smoldering, 7-foot pile of debris, Vlad said.

The house and several buildings around it are part of a 120-acre estate that Westchester purchased from Shirley Stokes and Bob Greene in 1991 for $4.7 million. Former County Executive Andrew O'Rourke proposed preserving 101 acres as open space adjoining the Croton Gorge and building up to 27 affordable homes on the remaining 19 acres.

Instead, the county is selling half the 19 acres to New York City as protected watershed land and half to Cortlandt as a local park, Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz said yesterday. He said he did not expect the fire to affect either sale.

[DRD 0]

Not mentioned, two recent Larchmont fires.

http://www.larchmontgazette.com/2005/artic...enbergfire.html

http://www.larchmontgazette.com/2005/artic...kcourtfire.html