Fire ravages Deer Park storefronts

Fire ravaged a line of storefronts on Deer Park Avenue in Deer Park Monday morning, injuring no one but causing heartache for the business owners who arrived hours later to pick through their charred belongings.

"This set me back a lot," said Ramon Herrera, 36, who opened Ray's Headquarterz Barbershop at 1825 Deer Park Ave. this past August.

The revolving chairs and tools inside his shop were burned beyond salvage; the front window was smashed and the rain beat steadily down on what was left of the shop through a hole in the roof. He'd saved only some family photographs, protected by the glass under which they were mounted.

From running his own business, he'll go to renting a chair at nearby Park Avenue Barbers. He'd already been in touch with the two barbers who used to work with him, and with a few customers who had expressed sympathy.

"Everybody knows how hard I work, and what I put into the shop," he said.

Next door at Long Island Ink, owner Rodney Frank, 33, said much of his shop's tattoo and body piercing equipment had been soaked. "I don't know what can be salvaged," he said. His business sustained lighter damage than Herrera's; still, he estimated it could be two to three months before it can reopen.

Suffolk Police Arson Squad is investigating the cause of the fire, which officials believe started in a beauty supply store at the south end of the four-store complex. The supply store was gutted. A dress shop on the north end, H & R De Paris Boutique, appeared mostly intact, but Deer Park Fire Department Assistant Chief Larry Bradbury said both it and the tattoo shop had suffered "heavy smoke damage."

More than 100 firefighters from eight departments responded to the 3:51 a.m. fire, fighting it until about 5:15 a.m., Bradbury said. Firefighters did "a fantastic job," he said, extinguishing the fire before it compromised the building's structural integrity or spread to other structures.

Residents of a nearby home were evacuated as a precaution.

Babylon Town Chamber of Commerce president Walter Wenzel said the fire came just as renovations finished on two area businesses damaged in a fire last year.

"There'd been some turnover in the area but also new businesses coming in," he said. "This area was having its own little revitalization; whenever you have something of this nature happen, it doesn't help businesses or the community."

With John Valenti