20 people displaced after fire rips through apartments in Coram, authorities say

A late-night fire Sunday that started in the garage of a Coram town house complex displaced 21 people, destroyed three units and led Brookhaven officials to declare the building "unsafe to occupy."

The fire damaged half of the eight units in one of the buildings at Fairfield Properties' Townhouse Drive complex, Town of Brookhaven Chief Fire Marshal Christopher J. Mehrman said in a news release.

"One resident suffered injuries but refused transport to the hospital," Mehrman said.

Because of the fire damage as well as the suspension of utilities, including water and electricity, all eight units of the building were "deemed unsafe to occupy," Mehrman said in the release.

The three most heavily damaged units likely will be "demoed" and rebuilt, Mehrman told Newsday late Monday, citing a conversation he had with Fairfield representatives. The fourth damaged unit "mainly" suffered water damage and can be repaired, he added.

"The four units on the other end" of the building that did not sustain damage "will hopefully be reoccupied in the coming weeks," he said.

The American Red Cross responded to the scene to offer assistance, and other efforts were ongoing to help to those displaced who are in need of temporary housing, Mehrman said.

A spokesperson for Fairfield Properties, which owns the apartment complex, said the company had no immediate comment.

Brookhaven fire marshals, along with the Suffolk County Police Arson Squad, determined the fire began in the garage of one of the town houses based on "scene examination and eyewitness accounts," Merhman said in the release. The cause of the "initial ignition of the fire" remains under investigation, but does not appear suspicious in nature, he added.

Hours after the fire, the exterior side paneling of the corner town house appeared almost completely blackened and the second floor of the two-story town house destroyed, its roof and walls completely gone.

The roof of the house’s attached garage was caved in while two cars parked in the driveway were severely charred, a snowman decoration piercing through the windshield of one of them, a Genesis.

Anthony Lamartina, 60, who lives in the corner town house with his wife, Maria Lamartina, and their teenage daughter, said they were about to go to bed when they heard an alarm go off Sunday night.

When he found that a fire had started on a shelf in his attached garage, Lamartina said he attempted to put it out with a fire extinguisher. The attempt did not stop the fire.

"The fires were just getting too big, and [his wife] dragged me out of there," Anthony Lamartina said. "When she opened the garage door, all the oxygen went in, and the place just went up."

Maria Lamartina, 55, said she called 911 but it took the fire department more than 20 minutes to arrive and direct water on the blaze. Suffolk police said their department received a 911 call about 9:30 p.m. The Coram Fire Department, the first volunteers at the scene, responded around 9:45 p.m., according to Mehrman's release.

The couple, who have lived there for 19 years, said they were under the assumption that the fire alarm alerted the local fire department. But after firefighters arrived, they were told it had been disconnected for several years.

"It took forever," Maria Lamartina recalled to reporters Monday morning, still distraught and tearing up. "I'm screaming, ‘My house is on fire,’ and nobody came."

The Coram town houses are equipped with "local alarm" systems, "which means when the fire alarm system activates, it does not automatically send notification to a central monitoring station for fire department notification," but rather "rely on the occupant’s hearing the alarm sounding devices and reporting the fire to 911 or the fire department directly," Mehrman said in his release. The building, which predates 2000, was not equipped with an automatic fire sprinkler system, he added.

The Lamartinas managed to escape with their daughter, dog and two birds. Maria Lamartina said she suffered several burns on her hands and head. Most of their belongings — such as a $50,000 Corvette in the garage and $60,000 work of tools — are gone, said Anthony Lamartina, a mechanic.

"Everything I have is gone," he said. "Everything."

The family said they are staying at his parents' house in Mount Sinai.

Louis Pagano, 70, who lives across the street from the Lamartina family, said he was about to take his dog out for a walk when he saw the flames erupt from the block of town houses.

He quickly realized he could not hear alarms go off from the neighboring town houses and sprinted to knock on their doors.

"Everybody answered the door. They were shocked," Pagano said. "They didn't know it was a fire."

While the roof of the neighboring town houses remained intact, flames had burned though its walls, giving a clear view inside from the sidewalk.

"Unbelievable," Pagano said of the fire. "It was big, flames spread quickly. ... Thank God nobody got hurt."