A cigarette started a small fire in a second-floor apartment at River Pointe Apartments on East Main Street shortly after 12 noon today, according to the Riverhead Fire Marshal.
“It burned through into the downstairs apartment,” Fire Marshal David Andruskiewicz said. The fire appears to have started on a second-floor wood deck, he said. “It was accidental.”
Occupants of the apartment escaped without injury, Andruskiewicz said.
About 50 volunteer firefighters answered the alarm for a structure fire at the apartment complex, with two engines.
Riverhead police officers who arrived first on the scene knocked the fire down with fire extinguishers.
At nearly the same time as the structure fire alarm, two automatic fire alarms came in to fire headquarters: one from Pulaski Street School, which was set off by workers in the building and the other from the Hyatt Place East End, where hairspray being used in one of the guest rooms set off a smoke detector, according to radio reports.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl and Denise Civiletti
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