POMONA, N.Y. — A home that had been previously fined for having illegal apartments caught fire Wednesday afternoon.
LoHud.com reported that an official saw the fire at the two-story home and flagged down firefighters en route to another call. The fire is believed to have begun at the kitchen stove from unattended cooking. There was only one person home at the time and were no major injuries.
Fire officials found at least five bedrooms upstairs, a basement apartment and building materials.
“There was extensive work done here without permits,” Rockland County (N.Y.) Fire Coordinator Gordon Wren said.
There were also multiple electrical boxes installed without permits and weren’t officially inspected. Multiple electricity meters were installed outside the home to meet code requirements for separate apartments, but were not connected to the power supply.
The construction of illegal apartments is creating an “underground economy” in Rockland County and officials are trying to identify and prosecute contractors, according to the report.