A Mattituck business ravaged by a fire in which a man lost his life in June was torn down this week.
On June 20, Mattituck firefighters raced to the scene of a fierce blaze at the intersection of Main Road and Love Lane at 10:48 p.m. after reports of a fully-engulfed blaze, officials said. The building which housed Liberty Data Systems was also the site of several other small businesses. Fire officials at the scene said they believed at least one other individual was taken for treatment from one of the apartments.
Police identified the disabled man who died in the fire as Paul Mittleman, age 51, of 12800 Route 25, Mattituck.
This week, Steve Busch, owner of the building, said he’s uncertain what the future holds for the site of the business lost so tragically. “It’s a piece of history gone,” he said.
Describing the inferno the morning after the fire, Busch, who lives a mile and half away, said he was first on the scene with the Mattituck fire chief, described getting an email from the building’s fire alarm system at 10:42 p.m. and racing to the scene as flames shot up into the sky.
“We smelled smoke,” Busch said. “We ran around to the back of the building, we saw smoke exiting from the air conditioner. They asked me if someone was in there, I had no clue, we went in the back door, we knocked on his door – no answer.”
Next, Southold police officer Andrew Garcia, third on the scene, tried to break down the door of the apartment but couldn’t.
“We went outside, overcome with smoke. I took his flashlight, I went back into the building from the next door, went to my desk, got the keys out of my desk, went back outside, and was completely overwhelmed with smoke. We fumbled through the keys and found the key to his apartment,” Busch said.
Once Garcia was able to use the key to open the door, they found the victim’s body inside the door, Busch said..
Mittleman had lived in the apartment for a year and a half, Busch said. He was unemployed, he said. “He kept a clean place.”
After the blaze was knocked down, Busch said he stayed awake until 5:30 a.m., headed home and put on his boots, and went straight to salvage some possessions from the rubble.
The charred building stood, boarded up, a sad reminder of the tragedy, until this week.
Firefighters from Mattituck, Cutchogue, Southold, Greenport, East Marion and Jamesport responded to knock down the blaze, according to Southold police. Other North Fork departments were put on stand-by, police said. The fire raged for more than an hour.
The flames jumped back to the apartments and the roof collapsed, onlookers said.
SoutholdLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl.
