Fire At Vacant Staten Island Church Deemed Suspicious
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A fast-moving fire that engulfed a vacant church early Wednesday morning on Staten Island has been deemed suspicious.
More than 100 firefighters responded to the House of Miracles church on Delafield Avenue in West Brighton shortly after 2 a.m.
"I just wake up and all of a sudden I smelled the smoke and then after that I called 911," said Frank Hernandez, who lives next door.
Firefighters were met with extremely heavy fire conditions when they arrived at the scene and couldn't get inside the building.
Fire At Vacant Staten Island Church Deemed Suspicious
"We attempted to get into the building," FDNY Chief James Leonard said. "The building was fully involved and fully collapsed."
The roof and many walls collapsed.
"Everything was burning," a witness said. "Then a couple of booms, bangs and next thing you know the tower went down...the flames were so hot people had to back up."
Fire officials said the rain helped keep flames from spreading to neighboring buildings and the fire was contained to the church, which has been unoccupied for about a year, CBS2's Andrea Grymes reported.
"That was a major concern with the flying embers, but the weather conditions, which usually hamper us, helped us 'cause the rain was very heavy, so any embers that landed on the roofs of buildings, the rain was helping to extinguish it," Leonard said.
The three-alarm was brought under control at 4:30 a.m.
The FDNY believes the fire was intentionally set. There was an "extremely heavy amount of fire on arrival, which is indicative of a suspicious fire," Leonard said.
Some residents said crews were inside doing some type of work in the building Tuesday, Grymes said. That will be part of the investigation as fire officials work to determine the cause of the fire.
One firefighter sustained minor injuries.
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