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January 5, 2009

Fire Guts Newly-Renovated Townhouse at 67 Cranberry

A massive blaze that drew over 20 firefighting vehicles to the scene gutted the brick townhouse at 67 Cranberry Street on Saturday morning; the fire is believed to have begun around 9 a.m. and no one was injured. The house had been undergoing a gut renovation as part of its conversion from a two-family to a one-family house since being purchased in November 2007 for $2,800,000.
Fire Guts 67 Cranberry Street [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Massive Response to Fire on Cranberry Street [McBrooklyn] GMAP
Large photo from Chucktaylor's Flickr Set via GL; small photo from McBrooklyn.

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Comments

Should fires be reported and crime not?

Argue amongst yourselves!!!

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at January 5, 2009 9:13 AM

Yes, Brownstoner, this risks giving the impression that fires happen all the time in Brklyn Heights; I am offended that you would print this without comprehensive context of how many other fires happened around the borough in the past year. You are printing this to create fear and generate hits to your website!

Posted by: Atlantic Frantic at January 5, 2009 9:17 AM

if i want to read about crime and feel sad for a victim, there are plenty of sites for that.

if i want to read about a fire and feel sad for an old house, than i want to read it here.

if you don't like it, don't read it.

Posted by: sender9999 at January 5, 2009 9:28 AM

I think Frantic was being sarcastic.

Posted by: itsagas at January 5, 2009 9:35 AM

If the fire was intentionally set, then it's a crime....double whammy for Mr. B.

Frantic, that was great!

Posted by: bayridgegirl at January 5, 2009 9:50 AM

I would LOVE to know who the contractor was as I'm in the process of trying to find one for my renovation!

Posted by: Susan Elkins at January 5, 2009 9:55 AM

Metropolitan is the contractor. there are a number of permits and violations for different things. The fire is already registered but the DOB states that the building was shaking! scarey and sad.

Posted by: oohlala at January 5, 2009 10:19 AM

Insurance. Accusations. Lawsuits.
Expect this to be an eyesore in the neighborhood for a while.

Tragic for the homeowner!

Posted by: bayridgegirl at January 5, 2009 10:22 AM

I wonder if the insurance pay out covers the back mortgage payments...

Posted by: stoep2conquer at January 5, 2009 10:25 AM

I feel terrible for the homeowners
what a horrible tragedy

Posted by: gemini10 at January 5, 2009 10:57 AM

My gut tells me this fire was not accidental, but an insurance fire. Owner probably 1) lost job on Wall Street or wherever 2) in debt out his ass 3)had no clue how much a renovation would cost 3)lost big in stock market 4)needs way out of bad financial status 5) bought a book of matches.

Posted by: jnewcleus at January 5, 2009 11:06 AM

I don't think this was an intentional fire. If the owner is a Wall Street type, his or her smartest move in 2007-2008 was to take money out of securities to buy a house in Brooklyn Heights. These little houses are tinder boxes, and with the flammable chemicals used in renovation -including polyuruthane and paint remover, both of which are like gasoline, it isn't suprising that a fire, once it starts, guts the entire place. I remember the big fire at the Margaret Hotel, during its renovation, not far from this house. That fire was so bad that the entire building had to be demolished. This looks like they will save the shell and rebuild the interior.

Posted by: sam at January 5, 2009 11:56 AM

If the owner is a Wall Street type, his or her smartest move in 2007-2008 was to take money out of securities to buy a house in Brooklyn Heights at the height of the RE market, take out a massive fire insurance policy on the house, and then have the house "accidentally" burn down.

FIXED

Posted by: theandrewlee at January 5, 2009 12:09 PM

The insurance fire story sounds dramatic, but is the product of some reckless, over-active imaginations here. The fire started in broad daylight, with the contractor's crew on site.

Anyway, here's a link to a Brooklyn Daily Eagle story from October about this project:

http://tinyurl.com/axpg7m

Posted by: NorthHeights at January 5, 2009 12:46 PM

There's no reason to assume it's intentional because of the economy. The materials used in renovating brownstones with all that woodwork will combust and start a fire if not handled properly like if the contractor stores the chemicals and rags in the house and seal it up over the weekend. Or it can be old wiring, old gas light lines in the walls that end up not being sealed off. Just make sure you have a careful, safety conscious contractor.

Posted by: traditionalmod at January 5, 2009 1:08 PM

How is it with 10 guys working in the house, no one could try to contain the fire before it got out of control? no fire extinguisher at a construction site? people says they heard an explosion, right after which the fire moved very quickly. I have no reason to doubt, there was a gas explosion. a worker said there was a welder on the second floor where the fire started - but they (the workers) remained tight-lipped about whether this might have been the cause of the blaze. the fire marshall was especially interested in this alleged explosion. based on how fast the fire moved, in a building that was mostly steel and masonry at this point, there must have been some other source of fuel to cause the blaze to escalate so quickly. after the smoke started billowing from the back of the building the workers from went outside the building and across the street, basically watched the house at 67 cranberry burn. not one of them apparently had a cell phone to call police or fire department or bothered to knock on any neighbors doors to say there was a fire. one of the workers yelled out to call 911... suspicious - you decide.

Posted by: gowanusadonis at January 5, 2009 2:08 PM

i think its great that the purchase price was inlcuded in this article.

do you guys ever listen to yourselves think?

Posted by: blackstoner at January 5, 2009 3:54 PM

How heartbreaking for the owners.

Re the contractors' ability to fight the fire, it can spread extremely fast if all the old beams and joists are exposed, or if the contractors are using paint stripper, paint or other flammables. I'd rather the workers get out safely than try to fight the fire in the first place. We are under renovation and have fire extinguishers on every floor but they are more for use to spray your way to an exit than for someone to play hero and try to put out anything larger than a dropped-cigarette smoldering. And doesn't the FDNY tell you to GET OUT and call 911 if there's a fire, instead of trying to put it out and possibly spreading it further?

Posted by: zeebee_in_bklyn at January 5, 2009 5:17 PM

gowanusadonis- fire increases exponentially. Inside of 3 minutes a fire is life threatening, in 5 minutes it can engulf an entire residence. The biggest danger is smoke- 10 guys without breathing apparatus are in serious danger. even experienced firefighters with full equipment on die from smoke inhalation, as per the Deutsche Bank fire at Ground Zero 2 years ago.

you can see a fire timeline graphic at http://www.nofirecuts.com/html/fire_facts.html if you are interested.

Posted by: bxgrl at January 5, 2009 5:19 PM

zeebeeinbklyn- you are very right. Most people mistakenly think there is time to deal with a fire, but in truth there is none.

Posted by: bxgrl at January 5, 2009 5:24 PM

Not that this really matters, but it was a three family before the conversion -- a lower duplex (where the prior owner lived) and second and third floor floor-throughs. In a long-ago life (according to the prior owner who owned the building from 1969 until his death in 2007), it was a boarding house, which you could see from the configuration of the upper floors (the bathroom on the middle floor-through had a separate door out to the staircase, among other things). It was a really wonderful old house -- I rented there for a couple of years a while back -- full of charm and quirkiness and character. The prior owner took real pride in the place -- though anyone who paid 2.8 million for it would want to make lots of changes, I suppose. It may have already been gutted by way of renovations, but I'm sad to know whatever old school charm remained has probably now been gutted by fire.

Posted by: slyone at January 5, 2009 6:28 PM

I'm going to have to be careful that I don't say too much here -- not because anyone did anything wrong but because it's just not my place to state too many of the facts definitively.

I know quite a bit because the contractor renovating my place was also renovating this place -- it was one of ~3 gut renovations he has underway (he usually has 3 going at once -- each in different stages.)

1. The contractor is an EXCELLENT contractor. He's been doing almost exclusively gut renovations in Brooklyn Heights for at least 6 years (maybe 10?) and usually has at least 1 house on the annual House tour. One sign of how good he is? Many of his customers are repeat customers. Another sign? A year+ into the process I still think he's great and have not a single disagreement or quibble with him. How man people can say that about their contractor?

2. It was not an insurance fire. The fire was started (I was told) by a sub-contractor's tool that malfunctioned. Furthermore, the fire started at 9am, with many people in the building -- not exactly a smart way to start an insurance fire.

3. The contractor runs an extremely professional, clean, safe environment. Obviously I don't know the situation at that house, but at mine there are fire extinguishers on every floor, a first aid kit plainly located, no smoking signs all over. And for the record, in a year of going by the site almost daily, I've never once seen anyone smoking.

4. Why couldn't they put out the fire? Again, it's not my place to say too much but from the way it was described to me, not only would it have been impossible to put out the fire, they're lucky to have gotten out alive.

5. In my unofficial opinion, the fire spread more quickly than might be typical because 1) there was no sheetrock/plaster at all, and 2) the fire started on the 2nd floor -- which was more or less open to the 3rd floor above.

This situation aside, I'm dismayed that anyone would leap to the conclusion that any house fire was intentionally started. While it certainly does happen, how often? 5% of the time? 1% of the time?

Peter

Posted by: PeterSteinberg at January 5, 2009 8:32 PM

jnewcleus... you are absolutely clueless on points 1-5. get it straight before you offer your mindless wanderings.

Posted by: buttermilk channel at January 5, 2009 8:34 PM

Hey Peter- most people are shocked to know how quickly a fire can spread. As I posted earlier, within 3 minutes a fire is life threatening, within 5 minutes capable of overwhelming a building. Fire doesn't move slowly at all- and the smoke can be more deadly than the fire itself.

Posted by: bxgrl at January 6, 2009 1:55 AM

To be clear though, all the original old details were stripped out of this house and replaced with steel and masonry long before this fire, so It's hard to imagine what could have burned so fast, without additional fuel. I'm glad you like your contractor (PeterSteinberg) but I can tell you Metropolitan are no angels having lived near this construction site since it began...

Posted by: gowanusadonis at January 6, 2009 10:39 AM

Gowanusadonis-

Indeed, I do love my contractor and it is NOT Metropolitan. I don't know why the paperwork for this renovation mentions Metropolitan -- that's not the name of the firm doing the job on Cranberry.

(Not that I want people to be upset with my contractor -- I just don't think it's fair that this accident get pinned on a firm utterly unrelated.)

-Peter

Posted by: PeterSteinberg at January 7, 2009 12:07 AM

Good Job Eake way to put a family out on there butt in this type of weather. Dee Dee Dee
Kirak De'ka

Posted by: kirak at January 14, 2009 10:41 PM

Good Job Eake way to put a family out on there butt in this type of weather. Dee Dee Dee
Kirak De'ka

Posted by: kirak at January 14, 2009 10:41 PM