Another Fire Erupts at Lawrence Aviation on Saturday

In what is becoming an all too familiar occurrence in Port Jefferson Station, another fire enveloped a building on the beleaguered Lawrence Aviation property off Sheep Pasture Road, an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site currently undergoing remediation after toxic waste was dumped there for years by the former owners.

Residents began calling and emailing Patch about the fire around 4 p.m., reporting that Sheep Pasture Road had been shut down. Soon after, a report came in from News12 that Long Island Railroad service was suspended on the Port Jefferson line to accommodate the firefighters battling the blaze. Dennis Whitman, a Terryville Fire Department spokesperson, confirmed that fire fighters were on the scene and requesting assistance from other departments.

According to a blog post by Andrew Tetreault, a volunteer firefighter and Patch contributor, the call came into Terryville Fire Department at about 3:20 p.m. regarding the fire at 100 Sheep Pasture Road.

“Due to the heavy volume of fire and no working hydrants on the property itself, multiple mutual aid was requested to the scene and for standby coverage from local fire departments,” Tetreault wrote.

Click here to read his entire blog post and see more photos from the blaze.

Whitman said that en route to the fire Terryville called for mutual aid from Port Jefferson and Setauket Fire Departments. When they arrived, additional aid was requested “due to visible fire through the roof of the main building.”

The department attacked the flames mainly from opposite sides of the building on the east and west in addition to other hoses used to douse the blaze. Because of the threat of collapse, firefighters were forced to keep a good distance using ladder trucks to put out most of the fire.

A Town of Brookhaven excavator was used to remove a concrete exterior wall for firefighters to expose remaining pockets of fire to be extinguished.

“The aggressive attack that was employed kept the fire contained to the administrative portion of the building,” according to a report given to Patch from Terryville Fire Department.

The EPA facility on the site was unaffected, confirmed Whittam.

Although no one was seriously injured, two Terryville firefighters were transported to a local hospital as a precaution after being treated by an Emergency Medical Service Rehab unit at the scene.

Terryville Fire Department was at the site until just before midnight.

This was the third fire on the Lawrence Aviation property in recent memory.

Whittam said that in the past, a guard shack and a large office building had burned down. This recent fire was in the main factory building he said adding that he though the building might have to eventually be demolished because of the extensive damage.

The site, formerly occupied by the Lawrence Aviation Company, has been a source of controversy for years. The EPA designated the land as a Superfund Site and has set up a pump and treatment plant to remediate the groundwater but that will not be completed for at least another 15 years.

In January , giving planners more time to decide how the property should be zoned and for the completion of an environmental study. Bewilderingly, a company called Blue Green Farms put in a bid to build a fish farm on a portion of the site a few years ago.

As well as being the target of burglars – last July two men were arrested when they came from Patchogue allegedly to rob the warehouse and in November three men were accused of breaking into a building on the site and also arrested – two fires on the property in 2011 were deemed criminal. According to the Brookhaven Town Fire Marshal, those fires were classified as arson by the Suffolk County Police Arson Squad. Two firefighters were injured fighting the first of the two 2011 fires.

In the past residents near the property have brought up environmental worries associated with fires, although the EPA had said there was no risk in those past fires.

EPA officials had no comment on Saturday evening’s fire at the time that this article was published.

According to Whittam, Saturday’s fire is being investigated by Suffolk County Police Department Arson section and the Town of Brookhaven Fire Marshal’s Office.