by YOAV GONEN and ROB HART
A ferocious three-alarm blaze rapidly engulfed a vacant former Waldbaum's supermarket in New Dorp last night, collapsing the roof with a sudden boom and threatening townhouses under construction nearby.
No one was injured in the fire, which was officially labeled suspicious.
Over 30 FDNY units quickly converged on the vast parking lot at 454 New Dorp Lane, responding to what was first reported as a smoke condition at 11:11 p.m. in a steady rain.
No firefighters were inside the warehouse-size building when its truss roof collapsed, thanks in part to an early radio warning.
"There's been a long history of truss (roof) buildings collapsing," said Deputy Chief James Leonard of Division 8, whom others credited with broadcasting the fast warning to arriving units. "We don't trade injuries or lives for vacant buildings," Leonard said.
Within minutes of their arrival, firefighters were confronted by flames that danced upwards of 30 feet above the curved roof -- at times shooting up like a blowtorch, at other times masked by billowing clouds of wind-driven smoke.
"It was a bad fire on arrival," said Assistant Chief Robert Sweeney. Firefighters did a quick visual search and didn't spot anyone inside, he added.
Tower Ladder Co. 85 of New Dorp and Engine Co. 159 of Dongan Hills were among the first units to hit the flames with cannon-like bursts of water. At the height of the blaze, three more ladder companies were stationed at the building's corners, blasting water onto the flames from above.
At times, blue and green tendrils of flame snaked from the rear corner of the building, suggesting either a chemical or plastic component, or extreme heat, according to a firefighter at the scene.
A third alarm was declared at about 11:45 p.m., and nearly 10 minutes later, as scores of neighbors and curiosity-seekers looked on, the roof collapsed, shattering huge windows at the front of the building.
At one point, firefighters turned their hoses toward the roofs of a row of townhouses under construction on a lot behind the building, because embers were being blown in that direction.
"That's why the rain actually helped, keeping the embers down and protecting the structures," said Leonard.
The vacant building that once housed Frank's Nursery & Crafts -- separated from the former Waldbaum's by an 8-foot alley -- did not catch fire.
The fire was declared under control at 12:25 a.m., although working units stayed there for hours afterward.
Sweeney said fire marshals would investigate the cause of the blaze, which was labeled suspicious because of the large amount of fire erupting in a vacant building.
While the FDNY utilized a "surround-and-drown" tactic -- dousing the flames from outside without sending anyone inside to minimize risk -- the blaze triggered instant flashbacks for veteran firefighters.
As Leonard recalled, on Aug. 2, 1978, firefighters responded to a raging blaze at a Waldbaum's supermarket in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn.
When its truss roof collapsed, six firefighters were killed, including James T. McManus, 45, of Graniteville, a 17-year FDNY veteran, as they punched holes in the roof to ventilate the heat.
At least 34 other firefighters were injured, including two Islanders, making that fire the city's worst in 12 years.
The New Dorp Waldbaum's, which opened in 1960 as an A&P, shut its doors in April. At that point, next-door Frank's Nursery & Crafts was already shuttered.
The grocery store was bought in March by bankrupt Michigan-based Frank's for $7.5 million, to make the location more attractive to potential tenants.
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