Sloatsburg family displaced following massive house fire
The fire at 59 Grant Street also sent a firefighter to the hospital with a burn injury.
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A Sloatsburg family has lost everything, including the place they called home, after a fire ripped through their house on Sunday evening.
The house at 59 Grant Street is a total loss, according to homeowner Luis Bera. The massive fire also sent one firefighter to the hospital with a burn injury.
"I was in the basement, she called me. She screamed my name. I went up real quick and I tried to put it out with a fire extinguisher. Then I went around the house, grabbed the hose, and it wouldn't work... it caught fire real quick," Bera said.
The three-alarm fire started just before 5 p.m. Units from Tuxedo Park, Suffern and Sloatsburg responded to the scene.
As the flames damaged the exteriors of the houses on either side, one firefighter suffered a burn to his neck. He was taken to the burn unit at Westchester Medical Center. He is expected to make a full recovery.
"I saw the smoke from about a half mile away. Called for our second alarm to get all the other departments going... Got our second truck to hit the hydrant and we made a big push on the front. And then as everybody else came, we kind of just pushed it out the rear," said Sloatsburg Fire Department Chief Matthew Swanson.
Bera and his family plan to stay with relatives in Brooklyn while they pick up the pieces and start over again. He said they were able to rescue the family dog from the flames, but their 12-year-old cat was still missing as of Sunday night.
"Our whole life is here. My brother's photographs, he got his old computers. Everything's there. I got my computer, my office was downstairs and I was trying to save that, you know. I work," Bera said.
Investigators were still trying to determine an exact cause of the fire as of Sunday night.
