Yeshivaworld reported on November 5th about a fire on a Shabbos afternoon in which B”H no one was injured. The cause of this fast moving fire is now being investigated:

A week after three New Square families were forced out of their home due to an intensely hot basement fire, an investigation still continues into its cause.

While unsure of the number of family members who escaped the Nov. 4 blaze at 21B Jefferson Ave., Israel Spitzer, the village’s deputy mayor, said all were safe and staying with family and friends elsewhere in the densely populated village.

Spitzer said the families were “still in shock and trying to get themselves together” before figuring out their next step.

“The whole community is helping out,” he said. “They are going through hardships.”

The fire began, fire officials said, in the multifamily home’s basement, and spread throughout the house and up to the three-story home’s attic.

Manny Carmona, the village’s building and fire inspector, said the flames were so intense that an adjoining home, about 20 feet away, had some of its vinyl siding melted.

Firefighters from the Hillcrest Fire Department battled the fire for close to three hours before an excavator was called in to clear the way for firefighters to put out hard-to-reach fires after portions of the building had collapsed.

Carmona said the building was demolished the next day.

“We don’t have a determination yet,” Carmona said. “The fire was so hot in the basement, it took a while to put it out. The floor started to collapse. We had no choice but to take the house down completely.”

Carmona said aside from the home on Clinton Street, which had some minor vinyl-siding damage, no other homes were affected.

“Although, had it been windy, it would have been a different story altogether,” he added.

Hillcrest Fire Chief Tim Wren said the fire was intensified by hundreds of small mattresses that were being stored in the basement.

The state’s Division of Code Enforcement and Administration was notified of the fire by phone, but no further investigation was pending, said Eamon Moynihan, a spokesman with the New York state Department of State.

“We’re available to assist,” he said. “We have in the past and in the future, but this particular instance only involved a phone call.”

State inspectors had planned to visit the site of every house fire in the village following complaints from firefighters that code violations were making it dangerous to respond to alarms.

Rockland County Sheriff James Kralik said the cause of the fire was still being investigated by his office’s Arson Unit and Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

TJN