Fire Rocks Holtsville Co-Op Complex

A co-op complex in Holtsville was woken around 9:30 p.m. Thursday evening when a fire ripped through a building in the facility.

According to Suffolk County Police, a fire was accidentally started in the living room of a co-op on Glen Hollow Drive off Blue Point Road in the Birchwood Glen Co-Op Complex. One woman, who lived in the house where the fire started and has been been officially identified, was evacuated and treated for smoke inhalation.

Neighbors were busy cleaning up the remains of their apartments Friday, as the fire caused damage on both sides.

Tom Banach, 26, who lives directly next door, smelt something burning, looked over his balcony and saw a light beginning to flicker.

“I didn’t see the flame yet, but the light was flickering at that point,” he said. “My father and I took a bucket of water each and headed downstairs.”

Banach said they pounded the door down and were met by the neighbor, who tried to keep them out of the apartment.

“We got in and threw buckets of water in there and went back to fill up,” said Banach, who mentioned his neighbor’s couch was fully engulfed by flames at the time he arrived with water.

Banach, a teacher and coach in the Copiague School District, then pulled his neighbor out of the apartment for her safety.

“She tried to get back in,” he said,” and I had to fight with her. She was looking for her cats. I said, ‘get out, unless you want to die.’”

Suffolk County Police eventually restrained her, Banach said, and the neighbors had not seen her since the incident.

Banach, a former quarterback for the football team at Sachem High School and National Football Foundation Scholar Athlete, lost almost all of his possessions.

“The apartment is destroyed,” he said, “we lost pretty much everything.”

Another neighbor, who did not want her name mentioned, said she was watching television when she heard fire fighters asking her to get out immediately.

“I ran back in and got my cell phone,” she said, “and nothing else.”

The Suffolk County Fire Marshal’s Office could not immediately comment since the first is still under investigation.