Woman, 67, dies in Plainview house fire early Saturday morning, officials say
A passerby views the charred remains of a Plainview home on Sutton Drive after an early-morning fire on Saturday. Credit: Joseph Sperber
A woman is dead after being trapped in a Plainview house fire early Saturday morning, according to the Nassau County Police Department and Chief Fire Marshal Michael Uttaro.
The fire happened on Sutton Drive just before 2:30 a.m. About 75 firefighters with nine departments arrived on scene and found the "ranch style house" fully engulfed in flames, according to a news release from Uttaro on Saturday.
The 67-year-old woman was found dead inside the home after firefighters extinguished the blaze. Additional details about the victim’s identity, how she died and why she was unable to evacuate the home were not immediately available. No one else was injured in the fire.
"One occupant was home at the time of the fire, and was unfortunately unable to escape, and is the lone fatality at the scene," Uttaro wrote in his news release. He later told Newsday in an interview that the house was "completely destroyed" and may be demolished by the town of Oyster Bay for safety purposes.
With temperatures in the 20s, Uttaro said, the blaze was "difficult" to fight because of the "subfreezing weather conditions and wind blown snow."
Uttaro told Newsday: "We pray and hope there are no fires tonight, because tonight's record-setting temperatures and conditions are going to make it a very, very difficult night if we had a fire."
The National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory and extreme cold warning for Saturday night, when the windchill could dip as low as -15 degrees.
Uttaro's office and Nassau County police are investigating the fire, according to news releases from both agencies.
Uttaro told Newsday the cause of the fire remained under investigation as of early Saturday afternoon. He said there was "no initial suspicion" the fire was criminal in nature.
The Plainview Fire Department was the first to respond to the scene, joined by first responders from Jericho, Levittown, Melville, Westbury, Bethpage, Farmingdale, Syosset and Hicksville.
It took the roughly 75 firefighters nearly three hours to extinguish the blaze, according to Uttaro, who said the fire was "visible from blocks away" and had been burning "for a while" before first responders were notified by a neighbor.
"They had some deep-seated fire in the basement, and due to collapse and instability of the structure, it wasn’t safe to get firefighters into the areas where the fire was still burning," Uttaro told Newsday.
Uttaro said the freezing weather and snow drifts create issues ranging from an increased risk of firefighters falling off icy ladders to first responders being unable to get aerial views of the fire with drones.
The low temperatures also required more staffing on scene so firefighters aren't stuck outside for too long, he said.
"Kind of like when we have a very hot day, [we were] having to cycle firefighters in and out more rapidly because they become covered in ice and we don’t want any kind of cold weather issues, such as frostbite," Uttaro said, adding that firefighters would warm up in a mobile emergency vehicle that's on scene.
Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
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