By Mark Reynolds
At 3 p.m. on Thursday, August 31, a call came in to 911 that a fire had broken out at the LaMela Sanitation Services at 1118 Route 9W in Marlboro.
Marlboro Fire Chief Erick Masten said the fire touched an office, a garage, “and an attached metal building where they process all of the trash that comes in.” He said no resident or firefighter was hurt during the incident.
Masten said in addition to his company, they received assistance from a number of area fire departments; Milton, Clintondale, Middle Hope, Orange Lake, Plattekill, Highland, Modena, Esopus, Bloomington and the City of Newburgh.
“Most of those departments were called just for tankers for additional water if we needed it because there is no municipal water down there,” he said. “We actually had to create our own supply that was from a hydrant about 3,500 feet away.”
Masten estimated that a total of 60 personnel were at the scene of the fire. He said because all of the garbage in the rear metal building was on fire, “the only way to get that fire out was to physically take the garbage out of the building and put water on it, otherwise it would just burn and burn for days.” He said they had to use an excavator to take down the sheeting and part of the east side wall of the rear building in order to gain access to the fire that was inside.
Masten said they had the fire under control within two hours and knew that it would not travel any farther, “and the rest of the time was just putting the garbage out that was on fire.” He said at midnight his department was the last to leave after all of the hoses and the equipment were packed up.
Masten said, “obviously the building has to be fixed and whether they decide to tear it down and start from scratch or work with what’s there, I don’t know.”
He took a moment to thank all of the fire departments that assisted at the scene.
Masten said it may take a few weeks for the Ulster County Fire Investigation Unit to determine the origin of the fire.
A representative of LaMela’s said they had no comment at this time.