Long Island brush fires caused by family cooking s'mores, Suffolk County officials say

Four separate weekend brush fires in eastern Suffolk County are believed to have been sparked by embers from a family attempting to make s'mores Saturday morning in their Manorville backyard, Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said Monday.

Police had previously assigned 25 detectives, along with arson investigators, to search for the origin of the fires, which Catalina said in a statement has been preliminarily ruled as "accidental."

A family living on North Cozine Road, Catalina said, had been trying to make the gooey snack at 9:30 a.m. Saturday but gave up and went inside after attempting to light some cardboard. The fire, he said, eventually ignited, but the family was unaware.

'Horrific situation'

"By the time they were aware of it, it was a full-blown fire, so that's when the Center Moriches Fire Department responded to put it out," Catalina said at a news conference in Shirley. "But unfortunately, some of it had probably escaped already."

Efforts by Newsday to locate the family on Monday were not successful. Suffolk police did not respond to questions about how the family was cooking the s'mores.

The street is at the border of Center Moriches. Police are continuing to speak with witnesses and investigate tips.

Suffolk is not pursuing any liability costs from the family, said county spokesman Michael Martino. The county does not yet have an estimate for the overall damage caused by the brush fires, he said.

Marie Baumann, who has lived on North Cozine Road for three years, said she noticed smoke behind one of her neighbors' homes at around 10:15 a.m. on Saturday, but initially thought it might be a backed-up chimney.

She expressed frustration Monday after learning that a morning campfire treat from a neighbor was likely responsible for the fires, arguing it amounts to "just carelessness."

"This is the pine barrens," she said. "The trees are dead, so a little spark and ... you could cause a horrific situation and that’s what happened."

All four fires thought to have been sparked by the backyard blaze — the Westhampton fire, and fires in Center Moriches, East Moriches and Eastport — are 100% contained, county officials said.

Firefighters early Monday returned to the area blackened by the Westhampton fire, which measured 2 miles long and 2½ miles wide and covered 400 acres, to finish plowing the firebreaks and to knock down any potential hot spots, officials said.

The process of containing the fires involved building 10-foot breaks around their full perimeters, meaning combustible materials and elements were removed to prevent the fires from reigniting and spreading.

Police and fire officials said 40 mph winds carried embers from the backyard on North Cozine Road. They sparked fires at about 1 p.m. on Saturday in Center Moriches, East Moriches, Eastport and Westhampton, the officials said.

The first fire was reported just south of Sunrise Highway in Center Moriches at 12:57 p.m., police said, somewhere around an eighth to a quarter of a mile from the Cozine Road house.

The other fires began on Chapman Boulevard in East Moriches, off County Road 111 in Eastport and in the Westhampton area.

Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine said the fires came close to jumping to the north side of Sunrise Highway as they did during the Sunrise Fire in 1995.

"The black clouds from the fire could be seen from Connecticut," Romaine said. "They were ominous. I cannot tell you what a humbling experience it is when you're in need of help, when the fires are burning. You see one fire truck after another pull up and people from all over this county, rushing into danger to stop this fire."

Two firefighters suffered minor burns while battling the fires and they were both released from the hospital, according to Suffolk County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services Commissioner Rudy Sunderman.

'Looked like a tornado'

Two commercial buildings in the area sustained damages, including AutoGate Systems on Old Riverhead Road, an automatic driveway gate business that has been there for two decades.

Company owner Mark Cirillo, 65, of Southampton, recalled smelling smoke Saturday afternoon and seeing the wind-whipped fire fast approaching through the forest.

"I walked outside and there was what looked like a tornado. It was a cloud cover that whipped up out of the woods," Cirillo said. "I couldn't see fire. I just saw smoke, and it just grew in scale and size and just covered this property."

Cirillo said he ran back inside to get keys to start moving vehicles, but flames quickly engulfed a truck used for storage.

"The fire was here, and within a few seconds, it just exploded, and the fire basically engulfed the entire property," Cirillo said. "It went over the building and burned behind us."

The blaze devoured a paint shop, storage building, sheds and vehicles, but the building's main office were saved by responding firefighters, he said.

"I can't tell you why the fire swept all around the building, on all sides, including over the roof, and the building is still here," Cirillo said.

Also relieved on Monday was Mary Crosby, president and chief executive of East End Hospice.

The fires came up to the parking lot of the company's headquarters, located on Westhampton-River Road in Westhampton Beach, destroying a storage container containing medical records — most of those records are now digitized — and a dumpster, Crosby said.

But the main building, which was vacant Saturday with the exception of a maintenance employee who escaped without injury, did not sustain any damage, she said.

"We were very lucky," Crosby said. "We had burn spots on every side of our building."

No patients are housed at the building, which is used to coordinate the care of hundreds of individuals, Crosby said. All employees were back at work Monday.

Calmer conditions forecast

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday announced an immediate "burn ban" for all of Long Island and New York City, and for parts of the Hudson Valley. The ban prohibits igniting any outdoor fires to remove brush or debris, as well any uncontained campfires or open fires for cooking.

Backyard firepits and contained campfires that are less than 3 feet in height and 4 feet in length, width or diameter are allowed, as are small, contained cooking fires.

The annual statewide ban on residential brush burning takes effect March 16.

The calmer weather on Monday cooperated with first responders, with a decrease in wind gust speeds and lower humidity decreasing the likelihood the brush fires could flare up again, said Joe Pollina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Upton.

Long Island is not forecast for any rainfall until Sunday, while winds are expected to stay calm through Friday, added Bryan Ramsey, another Weather Service meteorologist.

With Virginia Huie and Nicholas Grasso