10 N.Y. firefighters suffer heat exhaustion at four-alarm blaze

By Luis Perez
Newsday (New York)
Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.

A fiery corner of Elmhurst was perhaps the hottest place in the city yesterday.

A roaring fire on Broadway near Queens Boulevard consumed a row of two-story commercial buildings, devastated several small businesses and inflicted heat exhaustion on 10 firefighters who were among a team that battled the inferno for four hours.

No civilians were injured in the fire, which started at 7 a.m. on the first floor of 86-51 Broadway.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Hour by hour, flames spread to adjoining buildings - a shoe store, a coffee shop, a sandwich store and others — and firefighters kept arriving. By 10 a.m., a call went out for a fourth alarm — 168 firefighters in 39 units - a department spokesman said.

"We'll be mindful of the heat, mindful of the job," said fire department spokesman Jim Long, who noted that 800- to 1,200-degree heat is common in burning buildings. "If necessary, we'll bring extra units in."

Among them was the department's Rehabilitation and Care Unit, a rolling cooling center with its own ice machine, 5-gallon Gatorade jugs, stocks of rags for ice-water dipping and a giant mist-spraying machine. There's one in every borough; in winter, they serve hot tea.

The department also rolled out an air-conditioned ambulance the size of a city bus that is able to treat dozens of victims, Long said.

A Salvation Army relief truck that arrived on the scene to assist any civilian victims stuck around to make sure firefighters received cool bottled water.

At 10:55 a.m., when the fire was placed under control, the mercury read 90 degrees at LaGuardia Airport, relative humidity was 57 percent, and the heat index was 98, according to the National Weather Service.

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