4th Of July Fire On Wythe Avenue
YourNabe.com 7/7/09
A
two-alarm fire ravaged a Williamsburg water tank maintenance
company Saturday night, just as the Independence Day fireworks
sparkled above the Manhattan skyline.
At approximately 9 p.m., flames, some as high as 30 feet, began
shooting vertically from The Rosenwach Tank Company (87 North
9th Street), on the corner of North 9th Street and Wythe Avenue.
A cloud of black smoke, which formed simultaneously to the
Hudson River fireworks, could be seen on rooftops as far away as
Bushwick.A spokesperson for the FDNY said the cause of the fire
was illegal fireworks and the fire was under control by 10:46
p.m., 90 minutes later.
“Engine 229 was the first to arrive on scene and confirm the
fire. There was a lot of wood and sawdust at that location, very
combustible materials, and we received numerous calls for
smoke,” said Frank Dwyer, a spokesperson with FDNY.“When you get
a second alarm, you’re looking at 25 fire companies and over 100
firefighters on the scene.”
According to several eyewitness reports, the fire started after
two men and two women in their twenties lit small “Roman
candles” fireworks from a nearby building, though others said
the fireworks were “bottle rockets.”Pieces of the burning
fireworks were believed to have grazed the tank factory,
igniting its roof.
“There were fire trucks at every
corner and smoke was blowing all the way down to Metropolitan
Avenue,” said Ryan Kuonen, a NAG organizer who lives near the
tank company. “People were still talking about it the next day,
when the fire restarted at 8 a.m.”
The tank company, a division of the Long Island City-based
Rosenwach Groups, which maintains many of the rooftop water
tanks in Brooklyn and Queens, suffered significant damage from
the blaze.
On Monday morning, 36 hours after the fire, Rosenwach workers
were clearing away charred wooden beams and planks from the
factory’s exterior and picking up pieces of glass from a car
whose windshield had been shattered in the blaze.
A Rosenwach sales representative declined to comment about the
extent of the damages, but one source said that workers from the
factory will be laid off until the factory reopens within a
month.
The fire occurred only blocks from the former headquarters of
Engine 212, which closed in 2003.City officials praised the
response of Engine 229, based in Greenpoint, though community
activist and Williamsburg resident Phil DePaolo believes that
the fire would have been contained more quickly if Engine 212
were still open.
“229 was in McCarren Park on an
EMS run, so they were very close when they came in,” said
DePaolo.“They got there quick. If 212 would have been open, we
would have had water on that fire within a minute.They could
have just ran a hose directly to the firehouse.”Though City
Council restored funding for dozens of fire stations throughout
the city that had been threatened for closure, the FDNY was
forced to absorb budget cuts this year.The city’s financial
difficulty has led to the reduction of six-person crews on
engine rigs citywide.
“It takes them longer to run the lines and put water on the fire
because they have fewer people on each right,” said DePaolo.“I
thank God it didn’t happen across the street where people live.”
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