Volunteer firefighters from East Norwich, Oyster Bay, Syosset, Locust Valley, Hicksville, Cold Spring Harbor and Glen Cove had a busy night of dangerous community service as they fought suspicious fires during the early hours of Wednesday, May 18. The first fire took place at about 2:20 a.m. in a building under construction on the triangle property off Route 25A and Split Rock Road; the second fire started at about 3:25 a.m. in a building under construction at 48 Burtis Avenue, near Kellog Street (setting the roof and attic of a third house, 50 Burtis Ave. on fire and scorching the framing of another house, 46 Burtis under construction). In addition four automobiles were damaged along with minor fire damage to another occupied house at 35 Burtis Avenue. The third blaze broke out at 4:45 a.m. in a Town of Oyster Bay administration building for Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park which included a garage and storage facility located at the Town of Oyster Bay Marina.

Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto was at the marina on Wednesday morning as Town Highway Supervisor Richie Betz was overseeing the demolition of the town building. Mr. Venditto said looking at what had happened that night the incidents appeared to be connected. "The town is involved, it has to be. When you see three fires within an hour of each other you can't help but think it's deliberate. The Split Rock Road house applied for a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals and they said no. The court overrode us. If there is someone out there who doesn't understand an Article 78, and they assume the town is tolerating it [the eroding away of town zoning regulations that allow building to occur on sub sized lots], they aren't doing their research. With three fires in hours of each other, it is very disturbing."

The Split Rock Road building is set in a wooded triangle in East Norwich, adjacent to Muttontown and Oyster Bay Cove and has less than the two acres needed for a building lot. The East Norwich Civic Association (ENCA), fearing the undersized lot would be turned into a commercial property by the landowner, a well-known landscape designer Luke Kreye, objected to the needed variance for the site, believing that he might, after living on the site, find the traffic on all three sides of the house objectionable and request that it become a commercial site.

Matthew Meng, president of the ENCA said of the site, "It's a perfect showcase for his work. I've gotten to meet him one-on-one and got him involved with the Chelsea garden restoration. He is a landscape waterfall expert/specialist and he said he would help in the restoration of the pond and moat at Chelsea. He assured me he was going to use the triangle site for his family. The community never wanted it developed, and we work within the law, and there is no way we would tolerate any such action," said Mr. Meng. "Mr. Kreye said he was going to live there and not become a business and I accept him at his word, and as such I think it will be a lovely place."

There were also issues in the community about the Burtis Avenue property that is under construction. The family estate sold the property, a large house with a five-stall barn in the back, on a high parcel of land on the corner of Burtis and Kellog. There were no sidewalks around the house and it had a large lawn that added a feeling of open space to the area. Residents were disappointed to find that Laffey Associates had bought the property and planned to build three homes on the site, following the allowed existing zoning laws.

On Wednesday morning people were gathered at the site of the fires on Burtis Avenue. Charles Doering said of the site, "There was a beautiful house and barn there. We used to play ball and sleigh ride on the hill. The house in back on Kellog Street is slated to be demolished too. The whole character of Kellog Street is changing." Local attorney Gennaro Pasquale, also at the scene said, "It can cost $10,000 to get the permits to knock down a house. You need a certificate from LIPA and the water company and you have to prove that there is no oil there."

The men looked at the Jedzinak house at 50 Burtis Ave. and wondered if it was restorable. "The roof rafters are down. The roof was new," said Mr. Doering.

Mr. Doering said "The Laffey Associates houses are selling for $1.1 million each, without a backyard. They were quality homes. The one that burned was about half finished. It was ready for the outside work and windows, the inside work would have been done next."

One of the Laffey Associates owners was outside looking at the damage. He had no comment to make, neither did their attorney, Scott Conlon, Esq., but he couldn't help saying, "It was a rough night in Oyster Bay. It's sad, it's a good neighborhood."

At discussions around the fire sites the name of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) came up. People speculated that ELF might consider the new construction sites as their battleground. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said the fire scenes didn't conform to what that group does - mark the sites with graffiti.

Jim Margolin special agent with the New York Federal Bureau of Investigation said their general policy is not to confirm an investigation. He said there is some speculation about things that have happened during the past months on Long Island but that they are being handled by the Nassau County Police Department. "Our role is minimal or non-existent. We attended a briefing but we are not investigating those incidents."

He said that while domestic terrorism covers certain types of arson at present they don't seem to apply to these crimes. He recalled incidents that occurred in Suffolk where residential housing under construction was destroyed, but he said, "Typically, acts done by that group, or in the name of that group, are prominently tagged. They leave behind graffiti with their calling cards. Based on that the FBI is not involved at this point."

He said those activist groups include the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, an eco-terrorism group. "Two years ago four people were arrested and three entered guilty pleas and the fourth went to trial and was acquitted. They were all pretty young," he said.

East Norwich Civic Association President Matthew Meng said of the demolition of the town's building at the marina, "I'm disappointed that the town should bulldoze it so quickly. They are self-insured and collected all the evidence needed but sometimes a detective will say I just have to check one more thing. In this case it doesn't exist anymore. It is a practice the town doesn't need to do. They should at least wait 24 hours. The same happened to the Masonic Hall. It is probably a good rule of thumb to wait a little longer." A member of the Long Island Environmental Voter Forum, Mr. Meng said, "No one in the environmental community condones this. It is intolerable."

At this point in the investigation the fire is considered suspicious and the cause undetermined. Detectives request that anyone with information about these fires please contact the Nassau County Police Crime Stoppers at 1-(800) -244-TIPS.

Several people alerted the fire departments about the three allegedly set fires on the morning of May 18. "East Norwich attorney Jack Scheich saw the fire on the Split Rock Spur as he drove by at about 2:30 a.m.," said Matthew Meng. "He said it looked as if the fire was right smack in the middle of the house. There were no utilities hooked up to either the home on Split Rock Road or Burtis Avenue, and all the fires were within an hour of each other."

Cliff Kane lives across Route 25A from the Split Rock Spur Kreye house and he said, "I heard car traffic and then cracking. I looked out and saw a glow inside the window of the building for about five seconds. By the time I dialed 911 it was a fully involved fire. The fire departments arrived here quickly. Those guys really worked at putting the fire out."

Chief John Shoemaker said the East Norwich Volunteer Fire Co. was alerted to the fire at Kreye home under construction on Northern Boulevard and Split Rock Road at 2:27 a.m. "We arrived to a very advanced fire. It was an outside operation from the beginning. The house was unoccupied and still under construction. The Syosset Fire Co. stood by in our firehouse, and we asked for an engine from Oyster Bay because it was such a large building. Most of the fire knocked down quickly. We had a tower ladder with a hose directed down into the fire as well as master streams from two engines. We had a lot of water flowing on it, but to completely extinguish it took a long time. It was an isolated building on its own little island. There were no extensions or other occupied houses to worry about. It was a 'surround and drowned' operation from the very beginning. If it had been an occupied building we might have had to call in other companies.

"While fighting the fire, we couldn't get inside. There were collapse considerations so we had to keep a distance from it. There were also piles of debris around the building that we had to keep saturated with water. We didn't leave the site until 7 a.m.," said Chief Shoemaker.

"When we heard about the Oyster Bay fire, we released the Oyster Bay pumper truck so they could go down there. Because of the volume of the fire, we referred the East Norwich fire to the fire marshal for investigation. The fire marshal and the arson squad are both investigating the fire," said Chief Shoemaker.

Atlantic Steamer 2nd assistant chief Chris Mercadante said he was also at the fire at the spur. "It was roaring when I got the call from my girlfriend Lori Kabelka, a dispatcher with the Hicksville Fire Co. who heard about the fire and called me. I was coming into town when the Burtis Avenue call came in and Frank Ozol took control of the Burtis Avenue fire."

Chief Frank Ozol said, "The house on Burtis Avenue was a fireball when we got there. The house in the middle was totally involved and burned to the ground. There were two people in the 50 Burtis Avenue house and we got them out without any problems. There was heavy damage to the roof and attic but we saved the house and all their possessions. We kept the fire from coming down into the rest of the house. We were concerned with the residents, Mr. Jedzinak, a painter and his collection of paintings."

The Golluscio family lives opposite the Laffey Associates building construction site. Mrs. Golluscio woke up and told her son, Paul, there was a fire. She called in the alarm. Paul Golluscio, a junior at St. Dominic High School said, "I saw the orange glow from the window. I came to my mother's room and you couldn't stand in front of the window, it was so hot. The garage door melted as did the bumper of the car."

Several cars in the area were damaged. The vinyl siding of the house next to the Golluscio's buckled because of the intense heat.

Oyster Bay resident Catherine McConnell said, "While shooting film at the Burtis fire, the alarm went off again. A woman next to me was holding a fireman's radio that announced the blaze located at the marina. She looked up at me and said, 'That's the third fire.' Hearing her say this was truly stunning. When I walked up to Burtis about a half-hour earlier with my camera, I had not known about the Split Rock fire. While I watched the fireman put out the Burtis Fire, I assumed that Burtis was the only fire that night. But it wasn't; it was the second."

She said as she took the photos she could see that the fire was worse in the back half of the historic house at 50 Burtis Ave. than the front half.

When the call came in about the marina fire, Chief Ozol told Chief Mercadante to cover that site.

Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto said he got a call at 5:30 a.m. from Richie Betz, highway supervisor who was called to the scene and notified the supervisor and his staff of what had happened. At around 11:30 p.m. the Oyster Bay marina town workers were getting the site ready for demolition. Oyster Bay Highway Department Supervisor Richie Betz said, "These guys did a great job," indicating members of the Atlantic Steamer Fire Co. Chief Frank Ozol, Chris Mercadante, 1st assistant chief and Rich Warner, 2nd assistant chief.

The fire took place in an odd number month, so Chief Ozol was in charge of the fires. Chief Ozol said, "At 4:30 a.m. we were just getting the Burtis Avenue fire under control when the call came in about the Marina building fire. I cut loose the equipment I could and sent 1st assistant chief Mercadante to take care of it. It was a Signal 10, a working structure fire. The rest stayed at the Burtis Avenue site."

Mr. Mercadante said at the marina they had Oyster Bay Fire Co. #1, the Atlantic Steamer Co., a ladder truck from Cold Spring Harbor, a ladder truck from Syosset, a ladder truck from Locust Valley, the Hicksville HazMat team, and a ladder truck from Glen Cove. The ladder trucks put you up above the fire so you can cover the blaze with water. There were a lot of materials in the building: propane, gasoline, paints and paint thinner letting out toxic fumes. The firefighters wore their air packs. We never went into the building; it was a full fire."

Chief Ozol said they were worried about the boats and kept them wet. "Embers were falling all over the boats," said Rich Warner, 2nd assistant chief. "But we kept them from burning and having any plastic melt. If one of the boats went on fire it would have spread," said Mr. Ozol.

There was a giant puddle of black water on the east side of the building on Wednesday morning. Mr. Mercadante said, "We blocked the water drain and diked the area all up. We were afraid of runoff getting into the bay. The Coast Guard, the DEC and the NC HazMat people were all here covering the fire."

After his investigation, the fire marshal turned the building over to the town. George Baptista, assistant to the commissioner of Planning and Development, said they were taking the building down. "The engineers did an assessment of the building and the degree of damage caused by the fire and determined it to be unsafe. It has to be demolished. The fire marshal released the building at 11:01 a.m., they were at that point in their investigation," he said.

By that time, a backhoe was pushing the water into a drain in the parking lot and Mr. Venditto, town attorney Greg Giamalvo, Richie Betz and other town employees involved in the process were watching the progress of the preparations for the demolition.

The building was all charred inside. The roof was gone from the center part of the building. A charred staircase lead to nowhere. Mr. Giamalvo said, "I'm no expert at fires, but the inspectors look down to find the point of origin. It looks as if it the most charred area is at the foot of the stairs in the center of the building site."

The south end of the building appeared to be an office with a refrigerator, TV, and table and chairs. The center of the building was filled with paint cans and looked like a work area. The northernmost area, the garage, lost its roof.