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Jonathan Gordon

Kurt Semder

News conference on June 4 fire at Calverton recycling facility

OK, good afternoon everybody and thank you for coming out for the press conference. As you're aware, we had a major fire earlier this morning, started up about 2 o'clock in the morning, and it's a recycling plant and a transfer station for town refuge. Unfortunately it happened, but fortunately it happened without any injuries. We had one firefighter that was evaluated at the scene and he was released, and I can't say enough about all of the departments or all the 30 fire departments that responded. The volunteers, the men and women of the fire departments are incredible. They are absolutely incredible. Um, I have to give a shout out to my own councilman, Councilman Rothwell, standing behind me as a member of the Wading River Fire Department. He's been here all night on the scene fighting the fire. He just ran home and changed and came back for the for the press conference. Again, the volunteers are incredible. The job they do, the way they knocked it down, the way they controlled it, very, very happy, very proud of what the work that they do, men and women do of the fire departments. Today we have with us uh Police Chief Ed Frost. I have River Ed Fire Department Chief Peter Curzina. I have Rive Ed Fire Marshals Liam Keating and Jordan Palmer. We have with us Suffolk County Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Rudy Sunderman. We have DEC Assistant Regional Director for Region One Ryan McGarry, and we have our water superintendent Frank Mancini. Uh, we also have our members of our town engineer, uh, office. We have Drew Dillingham and Ken Testa. And just a quick note, I'm, I'm gonna turn it over to these other people to give you more particulars, but just a note for our residents that the town yard waste facility will be closed Thursday and Friday. Your curbside yard waste pickup for Thursday and Friday is also canceled, uh, but regular garbage pickup is still on. So if you get picked up in Riverhead, if you get picked up on Thursday, your normal Thursday carter will show up to pick up your trash. OK, at this time, I would like to turn it over to police chief or police chief Ed Frost. Good afternoon everyone. Uh, approximately 2:00 a.m. we received a 911 call for an active structure fire at the location located behind me. At that point we notified obviously the Ried Fire Department and Suffolk County Fres for a response based on the nature of the fire. At that point, the operation turned into a fire department, uh, designated area. Um, they did excellent work on extinguishing the fire, which is, uh, was a big task. They did. I can't say enough, and also, also our volunteer ambulances that were here on standbys, uh, from multiple districts. Um, I would just like to thank the fire district, uh, the fire departments that. Here, um, and that's pretty much what I have obviously, um, our fire marshal was here as well and, um, the Suffolk County police arson squad was notified and responded as well. It's an open investigation at this point and I have nothing further on the actual status of that investigation. OK, at this time I'd like to ask, uh, Rive Ed Fire Department Chief Peter Krazini to come up and also, uh, Rive Ed Fire Marshals Liam Keating and Jordan Palm. Good afternoon everybody. I just want to say thank you to all the departments that came out and helped us out to fight the battle that we had this morning. Like you guys heard at 2 o'clock we got activated for a structure fire. Right on see we had a full blaze going, uh, fully involved. Uh, we extinguished the best we could, and, uh, I am proud of our members and everybody who helped out from PD to EMS and everything everybody else. We had over 30 departments out here, about 250 volunteers. So thank you for them coming out and, uh, helping out with that blaze and also just want to say, uh, the scene will be monitored until further and the scene is under investigation for the fire marshals office. Thank you. OK, at this time, I'd like to ask Suffolk County Office of Emergency Management Commissioner and Fres Rudy Sunderman. Thank you. Um, as you heard, the, uh, all said that, uh, great job done by our, uh, fire, EMS and our law enforcement today. Um, thank you to everybody for their support. As the chief said earlier, the fire is under control, but units are still going to be on scene, um, working on the uh overhaul and the extinguishment. As you heard, there was over 30 fire and EMS agencies on scene to assist today with over 250 fire personnel from Suffolk County. Suffolk County sheriffs, Suffolk County Fire Rescue and emergency Services, um, and the town of Rivers had assisted in drone operations today. Um, the Suffolk County Austin squad, as you heard, um, and the and the Riverhead fire marshals are conducting an investigation. We did have the New York State DEC on scene today. They're still here and they have been monitoring the site assessing for hazardous conditions throughout the morning. As you heard, there was one minor firefighter injury and there's no civilian injuries. The town of Riverhead police in coordination with Suffolk County Fire Rescue and Emergency Services and Riverhead Fire Department have issued an all clear to residents that there's no active threat at this time. Again, we want to thank our first responders for their swift action and response for their cooperation, um, and we did earlier and make an announcement, as you know, around 7 a.m. that we asked all our residents local within the responding uh area here 4 miles to keep their windows closed and as you heard me say now there is no threat or concern that windows have to be kept closed at this time. Thank you. OK. OK, I'd like to ask, uh, from the DEC Assistant Regional Director for Region One, Ryan McGarry. Good afternoon. On behalf of Commissioner Amanda Lefton and the entire DEC. First and foremost, I want to thank and show our sincere appreciation to our first responders who responded so early this morning. I've been working all morning to contain this fire, to put it out, suppress it, and to keep the surrounding area safe. So thank you to them. Thank you to our first responders. Thank you to the coordination efforts from Suffolk County. As our affairs commissioner Rudy Suderman had indicated, DEC spill's personnel responded early this morning. Uh, we were able to set up some booms and do our best to contain any runoff from the, uh, fire suppression efforts. Uh, once we get the go-ahead from our brave first responders that we can get into the site, we will begin a more thorough investigation, uh, and we stand at the ready to support, uh, anything as needed in this developing situation. Thank you. I'm gonna ask uh Riverhead town Water Superintendent Frank Mancini to come up to the microphone, please. Uh, hi everybody. The system performed well as expected. Uh, we did bring an operator in at 2:30 a.m. to help manage it, make sure it did work well at this location, the firefighters were able to access both the high and low zone that we have in the system, so there is a small potential that you. Might have discolored water at this point. We're fully recovered, so we just ask that if you do experience any discolored water to run the cold water till it clears and if it doesn't call the office, but I'd just like to thank anybody and, uh, everything went as well as it could have. I also want to introduce my fellow board members. I have Councilwoman Denise Merrifield, Councilwoman Joanne Wasky, Councilman Bob Kern, and of course, Councilman Ken Rothwell. Uh, also a big round of app thanks go out to our highway superintendent Mike Zaleski. From what I understand, he was here on the scene, uh, and refueling the fire trucks as they needed, uh, refueling the payloaders and keeping the firemen going. I have to say it was an incredible sight this morning to see how 30 some odd fire departments can come together and they don't practice together for scenes like this. They all go to the same training places, but they don't practice as a group. And they worked as a group as if they were one and with over 30 fire departments to do that, it was absolutely amazing to see how they they knocked this fire down, handled it, and saved a lot of adjoining property from burning also. So kudos to the fire departments. Thank you so much. OK, I think I've covered everything we have here and I appreciate everybody coming out, so thank you very much. Dennis, come forward. I can't, can't hear you. The DEC sorry about that. You mentioned he might say that. I'm questioning whether was air monitoring. I think that might have been some misinformation. Air monitoring is not part of the emergency response. We can only air monitor where we have existing air monitors in place in the vicinity. I do know, and it's too preliminary to tell, I do know outreach was done to higher levels of government to see if they have that technology and equipment. Our main our main involvement thus far has been from a spill standpoint. So our spills responders were here to both try their best to contain the runoff from the fire suppression efforts as well as to analyze it to the best of their ability, but again, until we can get in there on the site behind us once it's safe enough to do so, that's when the more thorough investigation will begin. Um, so the, um, DEC permit and their operations plan require them to keep records of everything that's accepted, obviously. You. And this facility is permitted. 185 OK The permit and operations plan also requires. To keep the records of such on site, you know those records. Of course, yeah, so that's going to be part of the investigation, the more thorough investigation I just referenced once our responders are able to get on site once we are given the all clear and the safety check from the emergency personnel behind me. As far as your questions regarding asbestos, it's Still very much in the preliminary stages, but we do have reason to believe based on those preliminary reports that there was no asbestos on site. Again, I don't want to confirm that until we've actually been in there and can do a more thorough investigation, but our preliminary reports are that there was no asbestos on the site at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Um, again, it's just not part of our emergency response. Uh, again, I do know there are elected officials at the state level reaching out to our federal partners to see if the EPA can provide that technology. I would imagine their technological limits are similar to ours, but again, it's still developing, uh, situation, and we are going to be thoroughly investigating as best as we can all, uh, all debris, uh, once we get the green light to do so. Yeah. That's correct. So they have a permit to transfer asbestos, no third party asbestos, but they can do transferring. But again, it's our understanding based on preliminary reports that no asbestos was on site. Thank you. recycling. What will this mean? Our contract is with Kaluci Karting and Kalucci Karting would come up here and then hand it off to Crown, and Crown would have to sort out the recyclables and from the regular trash, and then they would pack it up and send it off. From what I understand, I think they ship it out to Pennsylvania. So do you expect And Well, the recycling was canceled for the rest of this week, so we'll start up again next week. They'll be ready. They'll make provisions to have either containers or something where they can put them in and transfer them out to other locations. Oh, yes. That it's I think we arrived here about 2 a.m. in the morning. I responded through EMS services and the ambulance this morning. There were multiple agencies that were immediately on hand, and it was a well coordinated effort by multi agencies and they did their job and they did it well. It was a fully involved structure visible from the street and then the rear structure was also fully involved so as the. Under the direction of Chief Pete, he did an awesome job lining up our apparatuses and getting things in order. And so initially we I just staged with EMS services. Uh, we didn't provide services to one firefighter who did recover on the scene, um, but outside of that, in my role today was as an EMT, OK. I can only say there was certainly a large volume of materials that were in there. And so, uh, there was at different times based on wind ships of heavy, heavy smoke conditions and so our our firefighters were certainly using their air packs and uh we did certainly, uh, throughout the evening move our EMS to different locations just to stay upwind and to protect our firefighters and EMS personnel. Not at this time, like I said, it's under investigation and the washer is taking it over, so it's under investigation at this time. Like I said, it's still under investigation. We pulled up it's fully evolved, so it's being turned over to the scene of the fire marshes. That means it's pretty much fire everywhere and we have to do what we have to do to extinguish it and keep the property safe, our guys safe. That was the most thing that we have to worry about and make sure our guys are safe and the guys did a good job and Fred and everybody else came out and helped out and we were able to extinguish the fire. Yes, whatever was in there, unfortunately I can't tell you because I don't know what it was. There was little pops, but this time, like I said, we're not sure what it was in there, but we were able to extinguish and nobody got hurt. So that's like I said right now you're still a little smoldering. That's why we're monitoring the scene and we're going to be monitoring until it's extinguished. There's going to be units coming back and forth, and they are moving everything around. So at this time, like I said, it's under control and we're going to be monitoring it. I am not sure. Like I said, I just became the chief not too long ago, so. I'm not aware of the history of fires in that mulch. Yeah, we did, we did have several small mulch fires, but they were very small, and there was a change. Nope, nothing to this age that's after the fire marshal's office in the town of Riverhead. Uh, as far as I'm concerned, the, the facility is pre-existing to there are specific fire code requirements for that, but, uh, this facility did not, to my understanding, of, uh, smoke detectors within there. That I would have to look up, uh, between the town code enforcement, fire marshal's office, any other site plan violations, not off the top of my head. I'm sorry, the question? None that I can report on at this time. I have directed our DMM staff to pull any existing violations on record on file, but nothing that I can report out at this time. All right, that's gonna be it on questions just so everybody knows if you wanna ask anybody on. Just before we all go, I would be remiss if I did not thank our ambulance crews that showed up. We had several local ambulance crews on scene standing by. They were set up up here. They were set up down the road just in case there were any injuries. Thank God there weren't, but it's always great to have our volunteer ambulance people here. So thank you all for coming today. I appreciate it.

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DRONECALFIRE0604

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LICalveton64noon_2025-06-04-12-07-31

Firefighters from dozens of departments across Suffolk County continue to work to contain a fire at an East End recycling facility, and we have Team 12 coverage for you this afternoon. It starts with our Jonathan Gordon. He has been at the scene of the fire in Calverton since early this morning. Jonathan, what is the latest on containment efforts there? Tara, new information this afternoon. Suffolk County fire officials tell me that the fire is 100% under control at this point. Billowing smoke could be seen for miles as this large recycling plant in Suffolk County burned to the ground. 250 firefighters from 35 departments from Greenport to Farmingville descended on the Crown recycling facility off Youngs Avenue in Calverton around 2 this morning. All the departments came together. We were able to set up a plan. My deputies did an awesome job and all the mutual that came down. The facility began operations in 1970 and specializes in recycling scrap metal, solid waste disposal. And demolition debris. Fire officials said the threat of toxic pollutants burning plus the sheer size of the fire posed additional challenges and risks to first responders. We're able to set up the ladders on both sides. Now a big building like this, you need lads and water, so we're able to provide that. Workers claiming to clock in for their shifts this morning could only watch horrified. I have no words for me. That's it. One Riverhead firefighter was injured. The Suffolk County fire marshal and arson investigators remain on the scene. And at this point, the cause of the fire still remains under investigation. We now want to turn to the neighborhood's Kurt Sumner is there speaking with people about the impact this fire had on the neighboring communities. Kurt, what are you hearing? Well Jonathan, we're about less than 1 mile away from the site of the fire, and neighbors here say they were woken up very early this morning by the loud sounds of sirens and fire trucks. They say they're not too surprised that this took place, but they are still disturbed. Now local officials are advising people right now to stay rather in the surrounding neighborhood to make sure that their windows are closed and to stay inside as they can, try to avoid any of the smoke from the fire here in Calverton. However, people here less than a mile away are acting business as usual for the most part, sitting or working outside even. Some are not concerned about any toxic pollutants in the air, but one neighbor who did speak with us through her ring doorbell says this fire could have gone very differently. If the wind was blowing in a different direction, you know, the preserve is right behind our home, and it's all woods, and it's scary to think that had the wind shifted, the farm next door, the neighborhoods all around it, it, it's terrifying. I guess mainly because I haven't smelled anything, so that's there's a concern that's, you know, really not a concern right now. And at least where we are right now, there doesn't appear to be a smell in the air. However, the state DEC did say they do plan to investigate the site once emergency officials say that it is safe for them to do so, they're going to be looking for any impacts from the fire as well as water runoff. That's the latest here in Calverton. Kurt Sumter, News 12.

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Fire officials are working to determine the cause of the fire that took more than 90 hours and over 250 volunteer firefighters to put out.

Officials: Calverton recycling plant fire brought under control

Fire officials are working to determine the cause of the fire that took more than 90 hours and over 250 volunteer firefighters to put out.

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