Update: Fire has restarted in pipe chase in Midtown Towers between 7-10th floor
Chief says woman who was inside room where was started has died
PITTSBURGH, PA - One person is dead after flames surged out of the windows of a Downtown high-rise apartment building this morning, forcing hundreds of people into the street early Monday morning.
Pittsburgh Fire Chief Darryl Jones did not immediately identify the female victim. He said two firefighters sustained minor injuries.
Flames were shooting out of two windows in the 17-story Midtown Towers in the 600 block of Liberty Avenue, at the intersection with Seventh Street. Passersby called 911 at 3:02 a.m. after seeing those flames, Jones said.
The fire began on the sixth floor and moved to the seventh floor, said Pittsburgh public safety spokeswoman Sonya Toler. Firefighters were moving through the building, which sustained heavy damage on those floors, for hours looking for residents who may not have evacuated.
More than 100 people were in the building, Jones said. One resident remained in the building receiving treatment as of 6 a.m., Jones said. Many evacuees have sheltered in the lobby of the K&L Gates building across Liberty Avenue.
The building did not have a sprinkler system, Jones said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Emergency vehicles lined both sides of Liberty Avenue, which is shut down between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
The fire has affected Port Authority of Allegheny County operations in the area. The Wood Street T station across the street from the scene was temporarily shut down but reopened at about 6:20 a.m. Bus routes have been detoured.
LOWER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) --
Investigators are trying to find out what sparked a massive fire at a historic orthodox Jewish synagogue on the Lower East Side.
Streets in the area remain blocked off as firefighters work on putting out hot spots.
More than 100 firefighters battled the three-alarm blaze at the historic Beth Hamedrash Hagodol on 64 Norfolk Street.
Fire officials say flames broke out around 7 p.m. The fire was brought under control a little less than three hours later.
Several firefighters suffered minor injuries.
The Gothic structure was originally built in 1850 as a Baptist church.
It later served as synagogue for the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Orthodox Jewish congregation for over 120 years ago. The synagogue was closed in 2007.
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Smoky 3-alarm fire breaks out at historic Lower East Side synagogue
Monday, May 15, 2017 12:52AM
LOWER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) -- Smoke could be seen from miles away when a synagogue on the Lower East Side erupted into flames on Sunday.
More than 100 firefighters battled the three-alarm blaze at the historic Beth Hamedrash Hagodol on 64 Norfolk Street. The vicious flames were unforgiving.
Fire officials say flames broke out around 7 p.m.
The good news is that the synagogue was vacant for a decade, and no one was injured. Firefighters were faced with challenges, though. They arrived at the scene within four minutes, but they had to quickly pull out from inside.
"The roof collapsed, so we mounted an exterior attack, so the whole operation was an exterior attack," says Assistant Chief Thomas Mckavanagh.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Massive blaze ignites early morning sky in Emeryville — flames could be seen 80 blocks away
Fire destroys apartment complex for second time in under a year
Firefighters battled a five-alarm fire on San Pablo Avenue in Emeryville, near the West Oakland border, on Saturday, May 13, 2017. It's the second time the five-story complex under construction has burned in less than a year. (Harry Harris / Bay Area News Group)
By Harry Harris | Bay Area News Group
UPDATED: May 14, 2017 at 3:25 am
EMERYVILLE, CA — A retail-apartment complex near the border of Oakland at Adeline Street and San Pablo Avenue burned in a spectacular five-alarm blaze early Saturday — the same building that was under construction again after it was destroyed in a massive, six-alarm fire last July.
First reported at 4:58 a.m., the fire at 3800 San Pablo Ave. was under control by early afternoon, but Oakland and Alameda County firefighters still were monitoring hot spots.
Traffic on several streets was closed to all vehicle and foot traffic except for emergency vehicles.
Heat from the blaze was so intense that it buckled metal scaffolding around the building and damaged a construction crane to the point that firefighters feared it could collapse. As such, 35 residents so far have been evacuated from 15 apartments and condominiums at 3900 Adeline St., according to Alameda County Fire Department spokeswoman Aisha Knowles.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation, although Knowles acknowledged the fire is considered “suspicious.”
There were no reports of injuries so far. The complex is located at the convergence of San Pablo Avenue and 39th and Adeline streets. Streets near the fire were blocked off and dozens of people gathered outside the barricades to watch the firefighters battle the blaze.
Police and fire officials said the street closures would remain in place until the fire was fully extinguished and the damaged crane was dismantled. The streets closed include San Pablo Ave. between 37th and 40th streets, Adeline St. between 36th St. and Yerba Buena Ave., 39th St. between Adeline and Market streets, Apgar St. between W. Macarthur Blvd and Market St. and W. Macarthur Blvd. between Emery and Market streets.
Chirag Dalibar, 49, lives two blocks away in Emeryville and said he was already awake when he saw the flames.
“It was a big fire, a huge fire and inferno, the biggest fire I’ve ever seen,” he said. “There were lots of embers flying around, smoke. It was everything you would imagine that a big fire would create.”
High flames and smoke could be seen for several miles, and there were some precautionary evacuations — later lifted — of neighboring homes or businesses as a precaution as embers flew blocks away, sparking minor grass fires in vacant lots. One police officer said that embers landed in a school dumpster a few blocks away in the 3300 block of Market Street, but the small fire was quickly extinguished.
Embers are also thought to have burned the roof of a house about two blocks away on 36th Street, although that fire, too, remains under investigation.
Oakland Battalion Chief Zoraida Diaz said the fire will be investigated jointly by Alameda County Fire, Oakland Fire, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Diaz said it could be a new investigation or a continuation of the investigation from last July’s fire. She said that this time there were cameras and security guards at the construction site but it was too early to determine the point of origin or cause of the fire.
Members of ATF’s National Response Team will be arriving from around the country in the next day or two to help local fire investigators, who are looking for witnesses as well as video footage of the blaze and the surrounding area.
Almost 100 firefighters from Oakland and Alameda County battled the fire, both from within the burning structure and with aerial ladders on the outside. The firefighters were also assisted by drones operated by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department.
Diaz said a major complication was high winds that blew embers for several blocks, prompting crews to be specifically assigned to putting out minor fires they started.
Vandy Tauch, who lives on 36th Street and watched the last fire at the site, said he was frightened because “this time it was blowing to my area.”
He said he was asleep when he heard a “crackling sound” and when he went to look out a window saw “a huge orange fireball.”
He woke up his wife and three children and rushed outside, grabbing a garden hose to start “watering everything down.
“I saw all these embers flying all over. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like fireballs coming down from a volcano.”
Firefighters eventually arrived at his home to keep it safe.
Diaz said firefighters would be on the scene for the next 24 hours at least to make sure there were no significant flareups.
She said the fire did spread to some condominiums under construction at Apgar Street and West MacArthur Boulevard that had been destroyed in last year’s fire.
Last summer, the same building and an adjoining auto business on 39th Street were gutted, and 10 townhouses on Apgar Street were damaged in a fire that took hours to bring under control. At the time, the apartment complex, called the Intersection, was a project of Holliday Development. It was designed to include rehabilitation of the historic Maz Building at the juncture of three major routes — Adeline Street, MacArthur Boulevard and San Pablo Avenue — with 105 units and 25,000 square feet of commercial space on the border of Emeryville and West Oakland.
ATF was offering a $10,000 reward for information that would help pinpoint the cause of that July blaze, the investigation into which is still active.
Police said the driver
of this Toyota Corolla lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the
Lindenhurst Firehouse on South Wellwood Ave. on Sunday. A woman walking
on the sidewalk was killed.
(James Carbone/New York Daily News)
L.I. mom killed saving daughter from car plowing onto sidewalk
A Mother’s Day stroll in Suffolk County ended in tragedy with a mom dying moments after shoving her daughter out of the way of an out-of-control car.
Police said that the mother, Diane Aluska, 55, was walking side-by-side with her daughter, Jenna, in Lindenhurst when the driver of 2005 Toyota Corolla lost control.
Ann Riolo, 80, failed to put her car into drive, sending the car careening onto a sidewalk on South Wellwood Ave. around 9:10 a.m., Suffolk County Detective Sgt. James Murphy told the Daily News.
“Her mom sees the car jump the curb, she actually grabs her by her shoulder and pushes her,” Murphy said.
“She saved her life, without a doubt.”
Riolo struck both the mother and daughter and then crashed into the Lindenhurst Fire Department, police said.
Aluska died at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip.
Jenna and Riolo were treated for non-life-threatening injuries at the same hospital, police said.
The Corolla was impounded for a “safety check,” police said.
But Murphy said he did not believe Riolo would be criminally charged.
“It appears to be non-criminal, just a terrible accident,” he said.
Photos from the scene showed the trunk of the Corolla had been caved in. It remained against a wall near the garage of the firehouse, surrounded by crime scene tape.
Murphy did not know the severity of the teenage victim’s injuries.
Photos on Aluska’s Facebook page show the mom proudly posing with her daughter in front of a Christmas tree.
Newsday reported that Aluska had been pinned under the car and that bystanders lifted it off of her. They administered CPR, to no avail.
Rev. Msgr. Joseph DeGrocco, of the nearby Our Lady of Perpetual Help R.C. Church, told Newsday he’d heard a woman struck by the car had attended Mass an hour before the crash.
Church staffers could not be reached.
Old driver commit so many traffic accidents. They are also slow to react to changing traffic conditions and make driving around them very treacherous. After a certain age, all old people must be subjected to mandatory testing of their driving skills. It must happen so that we save some lives.
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Mother killed, daughter injured by car on Long Island
Posted: May 14, 2017 5:26 PM EST Updated: May 14, 2017 6:34 PM EST
LINDENHURST, N.Y. (AP) - Police on Long Island say a mother was struck and killed by a car after pushed her 16-year-old daughter out of the way of the oncoming vehicle which was vehicle backing out of a parking spot.
Suffolk County police say it happened just after 9 a.m. Sunday as 55-year-old Diane Aluska and Jenna Aluska were walking on the sidewalk on South Wellwood Avenue in Lindenhurst.
Police say a Toyota Corolla, driven by 80-year-old Ann Riolo, of Lindenhurst, mistakenly drove onto the sidewalk in reverse, striking the pedestrians before slamming into the Lindenhurst Fire Department.
The mother was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Her daughter and the 80-year-old driver were hospitalized for non-life threatening injuries.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- A 44-year-old Union City police sergeant headed to work from Lyndhurst was killed in a multi-vehicle crash on Route 3 late Saturday.
Sgt. Mark Zeitounian was driving a car that was struck from behind on the eastbound highway near the Hackensack River Bridge, igniting a chain reaction that involved four vehicles, Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal said, confirming an earlier Daily Voice report.
The 18-year veteran was killed and five other people were injured, he said.
No charges were immediately filed. However, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Fatal Accident Unit was continuing an investigation, Grewal said.
Early Sunday, Zeitounian's department posted a tribute on its Facebook page:
"Last night the Union City Police Department lost a good man, Sergeant Mark Zeitounian, in a tragic motor vehicle accident.
"Sergeant Zeitounian was a graduate of Union Hill High School class of 1994 where he was a standout football player. He was hired at the Union City Police Department in 1999 and graduated from the Bergen County Police Academy Class #84.
"At the Union City Police Department, Mark served his whole career in the Patrol Division. Mark, was a knowledgeable police officer and supervisor who you could always count on to get the job done. He passed on his knowledge by serving as a training officer for newly hired officers.
"Around the police station you could catch Mark talking about his wife Debbie, his son Jason, his dog Bosco or his beloved Washington Redskins. Mark's passing extends a pain in our hearts still there from the passing of PO Ricky Fernandez. We hope that you both meet up and reminisce about your stories from the 4-12 shift.
"To Mark's family, his wife Debbie, his son Jason, his sister Maria, your Union City Police Department family is always here to comfort you and support you, as we know you are for us.
"From the moment that Mark was hired in 1999 until last night, we were always by his side. We will always be by your side. UCPD Sgt. Mark Zeitounian #350 your watch has ended we've got it from here. May you rest in eternal peace!"
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EAST RUTHERFORD — Off-duty Union City police officer Sgt. Mark Zeitounian, 44, was killed in a four-car crash late Saturday on Route 3.
Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal said Sgt. Mark Zeitounian, 44, of Lyndhurst was killed in the collision in the eastbound lanes of the Hackensack River Bridge just after 11 p.m. that injured five people.
No charges have yet been filed, according to Grewal, who did not offer details about the circumstances of the crash that closed the highway for about 8 hours.
On its Facebook page the Union City Police Department mourned the loss of a “good man” who was married with a son. “Mark, was a knowledgeable police officer and supervisor who you could always count on to get the job done. He passed on his knowledge by serving as a training officer for newly hired officers,” the department wrote in its post.
Zeitounian was a 1991 graduate of Union City High School and has worked in the Union City department since 1999 after graduating with Bergen County Police Academy Class #84, according to the department.
