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Kings Park FD-Massive fire on Old Northport Road

September 13, 1988. A fire at a former sand mine in Kings Park that raged at least seven hours this week has rekindled a debate between the property owners and the Town of Smithtown over whether an underground fire has burned unchecked for years.

Residents reported the fire at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday after they saw smoke coming from 25 acres on Old Northport Road that is used by National Demolition. The company, owned by Gerald Philbin and Richard Steck, is now used as a recycling center where used wood and dead trees are processed into wood chips, Philbin said.

The town and the company have been at odds for years over what the town maintains is an underground fire on the property. Philbin and Steck maintain that smoke rising from the ground is the result of the natural decomposition of wood.

Kings Park Fire Department Chief Salvatore Pisciotta said about 25 firefighters from his company and the Nissequogue Fire Department fought the blaze this week until about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, pouring more than 68,000 gallons of water on the burning debris.

“We just kept dumping water on that,” he said. “It was a pile of tree stumps and branches, and a little bit of wood mixed in.”

No injuries resulted from the blaze. Philbin said yesterday he was unsure of the fire’s cause.

The owners of National Demolition were called in, and they used bulldozers to knock down some of the large piles of wood in an effort to contain the fire, Piscotta said.

“It was a violent thing,” said John Valentine, Smithtown’s code enforcement director, who was called to the fire. “It looked like a volcano and the guys just sat there with the pumps dumping water on it.”

Valentine said the town will issue summonses to Philbin and Steck for failing to extinguish what it maintains is an underground fire, and noted that his department had received reports of heavy steam in the area earlier Tuesday. They also will be cited for failing to maintain proper fire lanes throughout the property, for failing to maintain proper fire breaks between the piles of debris and for excessive height on the wood piles, he said.

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