Firefighters search for possible victim after blaze destroys Island Park home

Firefighters were searching for a missing man after battling a fire that fully engulfed an Island Park home early Monday, authorities said.

Nassau County Chief Fire Marshal Michael F. Uttaro said a male resident of the house was unaccounted for. Firefighters were combing the rubble in search of a possible victim.

Officials initially believed a husband and wife were in the house at the time of the fire, but later learned the wife was living in an assisted living facility.

A team of fire marshals and members of the Town of Hempstead buildings department was working to slowly take the unstable house apart with machinery, including an excavator, he said.

"We’re treating it as if he possibly is in there," Uttaro said.

The second floor of the home collapsed in the fire, making the search more difficult, he said.

Around 1:49 a.m., authorities received a call of a "significant fire" at a Sunset Avenue house and a report that people might be inside, police and fire officials said.

Island Park Fire Chief Eric Gorton said firefighters arrived to find the home completely engulfed in flames and "blowing out every window of the house."

The fire became so intense that the siding of a neighbor’s house caught fire, he said.

About 120 firefighters from multiple companies responded to the scene, including Island Park, Point Lookout, Oceanside, Freeport, Baldwin, East Rockaway, Lynbrook, Franklin Square and Rockville Centre, Uttaro said.

No firefighters were injured.

The fire was under control within 90 minutes, Uttaro said.

The intersection of Sunset at New York avenues was closed off by yellow tape Monday morning, illuminated by the flashing lights of fire vehicles parked by the charred house.

Susan Dada, 69, who lives on the opposite corner across the street from the burned house, said she woke up to the sounds of emergency vehicles.

She looked outside her bedroom window and saw the fire.

“The house was so engulfed it looked like a raging fire from like a brush fire,” she said. "It was horrendous. It's just something you would see in a movie.”

At one point, the wind picked up and Dada said she saw embers drifting in the air. She was grateful for the rain, as that seemed to dampen the spread of the fire.

Dada said she didn’t fall asleep until around 5 a.m., concerned for the man and the safety of the neighborhood.

Although she has only lived in the area for a year, she described the resident of the burned house as “sweetheart of a man” who minded his own business, but who would say hello.

“He would help people,” Dada said. “He was very nice to everybody."

Jeff Speight, 67, who lives one block away from the burned house, said he was unaware of the fire until he walked his dog in the neighborhood this morning.

He usually walks his dog past the house that burned, but learned he couldn’t take the usual route as it was blocked off by fire officials.

Speight said his family lived in the area for almost three decades, but had last seem the man in November.

“I can't imagine,” he said. "I feel the worst has happened over there.”

Magdalena Stovickova, 50, who lives across the street, said she awoke to sounds of an explosion. She looked outside her window and saw flames coming from the top story. She and another neighbor, a member of the FDNY, attempted to alert the occupants but it was too dangerous to go inside, she said.

Midmorning, neighbors came out to watch fire officials taking down shrubbery with a chain saw and clearing charred debris from the street with a hose.

Nassau fire marshal investigators and police detectives were investigating the cause of the fire.

Check back for updates on this developing story.