Smoke Visible Across Downtown in Montauk Truck Fire

Despite quick action by the Montauk Fire Department Saturday just before noon, a pickup truck parked in the beach access area by Sloppy Tuna on South Edison Street was totaled in a fast-moving fire.

Chief Vincent Franzone said the interior "melted into a lava ball," with the steering column becoming one with the truck cabin's floor. The chief said the owner, a Montauk woman, had just parked and walked down to the beach with a friend. They turned around and saw white smoke pouring out from under the dash. That smoke soon turned black, as the fire spread to the bed of the truck, and billowed up into the sky, visible across downtown Montauk.

A big part of the problem confronting the firefighters was that the truck bed had a fiberglass cap, and was loaded with camping equipment, including Sterno, all adding fuel to the fire.

The response was almost immediate, with two assistant chiefs on the scene within two minutes. A pumper manned by five firefighters and backed up by a 3,500 gallon tanker doused the blaze.

The truck's gas tank was full, Chief Franzone said, which is actually safer than if it was empty. It is quite rare for vehicles to explode in a fire, he explained, saying that it was more "Hollywood" than reality. However, what is dangerous during a vehicle fire, he said, are the bumpers, which have small shock absorbers inside, for minor collisions. When those explode, pieces of the bumper become projectiles. That is why firefighters approach a burning vehicle from the side.

The owner of the truck told firefighters that she had shut the engine off but had left her keys inside the cabin. Firefighters searched for them in vain.

This was the second fairly serious fire in Montauk since the beginning of the year. An electrical fire broke out in a shed on West Lake Drive Jan. 14 when service running to the building shorted out and caught fire, the chief said. It presented a special challenge for firefighters because water cannot be used on electrical fires. "It was particularly difficult, because PSEG did not have a repair crew anywhere from here to Patchogue," the chief said. "It was a two-hour wait."

He wondered why the utility company does not have a repair crew standing by, perhaps in Bridgehampton, or, at a minimum, "someplace in the Hamptons?" To fight this type fire without the aid of the utility, the Montauk Fire Department used "pretty much everything in our arsenal," the chief said, in the way of fire extinguishers. Some of those extinguishers were used multiple times, the chief said. The department has about a dozen on hand, ready to go at any one moment.