Brush Fire Ravages Marine Park’s Salt Marsh

Scores of firefighters spent almost two hours battling a raging brush fire in the southern edge of Marine Park’s salt marsh Monday night.

Lieutenant Dave Ostrowski, a member of the Gerritsen Beach Volunteer Fire Department (The Vollies), was one of the first at the scene. He charged into the woods with a partner on the Vollies’ Brush Fire Unit (BFU), a small four-wheeled vehicle with a 100-gallon water tank that is able to maneuver through the narrow trails inside the park.

Ostowski said when he made it to the scene, flames 25 to 30 feet high were roaring off the thick brush and weeds between the edge of the park and Shell Bank Creek.

“This was one of the biggest fires I’ve seen,” he said. “The fire was everywhere. Whenever you turned, it started up somewhere else.”

Neighbors called in the fire just after 6pm when they spotted smoke rising above the trees near Lois and Gerritsen avenue. The Vollies said their BFU, also known as “the gator,” made it into the park six minutes after the call. The Gerritsen Beach fire truck arrived seven minutes later.

Ostrowski explained the flames were concentrated in “pockets” of brush, some 60 feet in length, and that strong winds helped the blaze spread quickly.

“No matter where we were, there was fire. We started working on one pocket, and another one came up out of nowhere about 10 yards behind us,” he said. “We immediately called in ‘all hands’ and told everyone to get down here.”

At least seven FDNY fire trucks and one ambulance made it to scene and helped the Vollies bring the fire under control. Teams of firefighters, their faces smeared with black soot, came striding out of the dark smoky woods around 8:17pm when the flames had been extinguished.

This is the second fire in the salt marsh this month. A similar blaze threatened homes along Burnett Street for several hours on March 1.

Doreen Garson, chief of the Vollies, explained we are entering the season for brush fires and that many more are expected to occur between now and November.

She didn’t know what caused the brush fire, and said there could be many explanations.

“It could be a homeless person back there cooking, it could be some kids. Kids light fires sometimes. This kind of thing happens all the time,” she said.