The enormous two-alarm fire at a city Department of Transportation garage in Forest Hills last week could have caused much more damage than it did had the wind shifted, Community Board 6 District Manager Frank Gulluscio said.
Gulluscio, a Howard Beach native, was at the scene of the blaze as firefighters were finishing up the two-hour fight against the flames. As he watched in the bitter, frigid cold, he said he grew concerned for the neighboring buildings, which included residential homes as well as a nearby school.
“I felt that if the wind would have shifted, we probably could have had a major catastrophe there,” he said. “But I was very impressed by the Fire Department. They were on the job immediately.”
He described a scene that included firefighters covered in snow and ice battling a blaze amid seemingly arctic temperatures.
A Fire Department spokesman said the flames accidentally started inside the engine compartment of a vehicle parked at the garage in the early morning hours before spreading into a two-alarm fire. The charred building has since been tended to and boarded up with plans of demolition, he said, and did not pose a threat to any of the neighboring buildings.
The fire initially broke out early last Thursday morning around 5 a.m. at the Sybilla Street building, the FDNY said, and took 25 FDNY units and 105 firefighters to bring it down over two hours. There were no injuries reported as a result of the blaze.
After extinguishing the blaze, the city Office of Emergency Management was also on hand to assist the freezing firefighters with warm coffee.
By Phil Corso
