By Gina Martinez
A contractor from Yonkers has been arrested in connection with the five-alarm Elmhurst fire that damaged 112 units in a brick apartment building Tuesday afternoon, FDNY officials said.
Declan Mcelhatton, 53, of Maintenance Asset Management, was charged with arson and reckless endangerment, the officials said. According to the Fire Department, the cause of the fire was an open flame in close proximity to combustibles.
The fire began around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon at Martinique Plaza at 56-11 94th St., blocks away from the Queens Center Mall. By 7:30 p.m. the blaze had escalated to a five-alarm fire, officials said. A total of 200 firefighters were at the scene to put out the heavy fire and had the blaze under control at 10:30 p.m. Eleven firefighters were injured, FDNY said, but all of the residents escaped unscathed. The fire spread throughout the top floors of the seven-story building and there was a partial roof collapse, according to officials.
Chief of Department James Leonard was on the scene. He told reporters that new technology helped firefighters extinguish the fire.
“Miraculously, there were no injuries to civilians,” Leonard said. “The tragedy here, though, is that there is extensive damage to over 112 apartments, so we’re working with the Red Cross to get into that. One of the things we used here for the second time was our new drone, which was highly effective for our strategy and our tactics.”
The Red Cross has set up a reception center at PS 13, directly across the street from the apartment house and was meeting with affected residents, providing them with food, beverages, health assistance and emotional support. According to a Red Cross spokesman, the agency has connected with 100 families and has case workers meeting with families one-on-one to address specific needs. He said the Red Cross was not sure how many of the apartments were occupied.
On Wednesday morning, firefighters were allowing residents to get important belongings from their apartment. Bart Navani, who lived on the fifth floor, and his neighbor and friend, Robin Lama, were waiting on line to get what they could salvage from their apartments.
“I lived on the fifth floor,” Navani said. “My ceiling has collapsed, furniture gone, kitchen and bathroom are a mess. It’s pretty bad. I would say half my stuff is gone, half is salvageable, but I consider myself lucky because people on the sixth floor lost everything. It’s all gone.”
Navani and Lama stayed over at a friend’s house, but were receiving help from the American Red Cross, which they called “amazing” and “very helpful.”
Lama’s sixth-floor apartment was damaged in the fire and was unlivable, he said. For now, Lama does not know what happens next.
Reach Gina Martinez by e-mail at gmart
