May 2, 1999 - Huntington Station, NY.

An early morning fire roared through an illegal, two-story home in Huntington Station yesterday, killing three Salvadorans as 30 others managed to escape the crowded building that had been subdivided into tiny rooms by sheets, towels and cardboard.

At least eight people — including an 18-month-old baby and two older children —jumped or were thrown to safety from second-floor windows in the squat white building that was zoned for commercial use only, meaning no one should have been living there at all, according to town authorities.

"I just said, ‘God save me,  as I jumped," said Paula Perla, 35, who said she awoke to the smell of gasoline and the sight of flames in her second-floor room. "I was gasping for air and part of my hair was on fire. I fell flat on my back. I could not think of anything."

Then, Perla said she watched in horror from the ground as a man who had arrived from El Salvador on Wednesday, Luis Cruz, helped two children jump to safety and then appeared to collapse on the windowsill.

In addition to Cruz, police identified the other dead as 37-year-old Maria Chicas, who had refused entreaties to jump out a window and instead tried to rescue her 5-year-old daughter, Maria Pineda, from her bed. The girl also died.

"I yelled at her that I was going to get her out no matter what, but she pulled away from me and went to get her daughter out of the crib," said Chicas  brother, Clemente Chicas, 42, who lived in the same apartment. "I wanted to go in and rescue her, but the room was already engulfed in fire. It was as if the fire had taken her away from my hands."

Firefighters later found mother and daughter about-four feet apart, apparently trying to get out the window, a short distance from the child s bed which had a few dolls strewn about. "It breaks your heart. It sticks in your mind for a long time," said Second Assistant Chief Michael Pastore, who found the pair.

Police and fire investigators said yesterday they were looking at all causes. "But the main suspicion right now is arson. It was an awful lot of fire, quickly," said one fire official who was at the scene.

Investigators said the fire appeared to begin at the top floor, and they were zeroing in on the building stairwell, where it could have been set.

Town authorities, meanwhile, insisted they were unaware people were living in the nondescript white building near the junction of Route 110 and Jericho Turnpike. "This is not a place for people to live," said Huntington Town Supervisor Frank Petrone.

Town records list the owner as Harvey Vengroff, an eccentric multi-millionaire who runs the second largest collection company in the nation, often from a 64-foot ketch in Longboat Key, Fla., according to published reports. A 1997 profile in Forbes magazine described how he owns more than 150 properties mostly on Long Island, in addition to five boats and a different car for each day of the week.

Vengroff could not be reached yesterday, but his son, Joe Vengroff, said at the scene last night that they would give $200 to each family living in the building and they would pay travel and funeral expenses to return the dead and their families to El Salvador.

The fire yesterday began somewhere on the second floor with the smell of gasoline and billowing, black smoke and then an explosion, around 3:30 a.m. as several windows blew out at the same time. Dozens of smaller explosions followed.

Another resident, Elvancia Flores, was in critical condition last night at University Hospital and Medical Center at Stony Brook with burns over 67 percent of his body. Ten others, including two firefighters, were treated at area hospitals with injuries that were not life threatening.

Survivors describe apartments that rented for $800 a month that at times lacked heat and hot water. Those on the bottom floors told how they had to line bathroom ceilings with plastic to keep from being flooded by leaks from above. Extension cords ran up the staircase because there were few outlets on the second floor.

Many acknowledged, however, that they did not complain about the conditions for fear that they would be turned into immigration authorities.
 

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