Cigarette to blame for West End house fire

Firefighters battled a blaze on Kentucky Street on March 30, and were able to prevent it from spreading. Photo courtesy Long Beach Fire Department, Facebook

A Long Beach firefighter was injured on March 30 battling a house fire in the West End that was caused by a discarded cigarette, fire officials said.

Firefighters rushed to the scene at 85 Kentucky St. at 7:17 p.m., where first-arriving units found heavy smoke and flames extending up the side of the home and making its way to a second-floor window, Fire Chief R.J. Tuccillo said.

“We were lucky it was exterior and we were lucky enough that the guys got there quickly,” Tuccillo said. “We were coming from another call and we had a class across the street at the [Indiana] fire house.”

The fire began between two single-family homes, Tuccillo said, and between 20 to 30 firefighters responded to the scene.

Flames began to spread along the side of one of the homes, though firefighters were able to prevent the fire from breaching the interior and spreading to a nearby home despite strong winds.

“ … Fifteen or 20 more minutes with that wind, it would have went into both attics,” Tuccillo said.

Firefighters breached the exterior walls and a section of the roof to knock down the remaining small pockets of fire, according to the department’s Facebook page. The flames were extinguished within 20 minutes, said Tuccillo, who added that the Nassau County Fire Marshal determined that a cigarette discarded between the two homes was to blame, similar to an incident in January on West Fulton Street.

One firefighter was injured and transported to South Nassau Communities Hospital in stable condition. He has since been released. “He’s going to be fine,” Tuccillo said.

The residents of the home escaped and were not injured, Tuccillo said.

“Everyone got out OK,” he said. “They’re going to have some smoke damage inside, that’s about it.”