More than a dozen residents displaced by Westhampton mixed-use complex fire

The American Red Cross has stepped in to help the victims of a fire that blazed through the apartments of a three-story building on Main Street in Westhampton Beach on Friday morning, officials said.

The Westhampton Beach Fire Department responded to a fire at the Main Street retail and residential building at approximately 5:20 a.m., said John Neely, a volunteer member with the department’s fire police unit. The blaze also drew members of the Center Moriches, Eastport, East Moriches, East Quogue, Flanders, Hampton Bays, Riverhead, Southampton and Quogue fire departments.

"It looked like almost the whole building was on fire when we got there," Neely said. "It took about an hour or so to get the fire under control and out. It kept popping up in different places. It was kind of a difficult fire to extinguish."

Neely said there were no injuries reported during the incident, adding that all residents of the apartments on the second and third stories of the structure self evacuated. He estimated more than a dozen residents were displaced.

"It’s not habitable at all," Neely said of the two floors of apartments.

The fire did not damage the Main Street structures on either side of it, separated by narrow alleyways.

"The crews made a great stop given the conditions they encountered," Westhampton Beach Fire Department Chief Darryl Schunk said in a statement. "They definitely saved the adjacent buildings."

The scene was turned over to the Southampton Town Fire Marshal for investigation, Neely said. The Westhampton Beach firehouse was used as a shelter for the displaced residents who were assisted by the Suffolk County Office of Emergency Management and the American Red Cross.

A trio of clothing and accessories boutiques on the bottom floor of the building — Nibi MTK, Tola and Palmer and Purchase — suffered water damage as firefighters battled the blaze, Neely said.

"Firefighters covered a lot of the stock, they tried to save that, but they were pouring water on the top two floors," Neely said. "You can imagine the amount of water seeping down."

Nibi MTK "will be closed indefinitely" the shop announced on Instagram Friday morning in a post that included photographs of the blaze. In similar posts, underneath video footage of Friday morning’s scene, Tola announced it will "be closed for the foreseeable future" and Palmer and Purchase said "we will come back."