Photos: Several Fire Departments Fight Northwest Woods Blaze
On New Year’s Day at 12:43 p.m., East Hampton Fire Department responded to a structure fire at a large residence located at 56 Hedges Banks Drive in Northwest Woods.
The first units to arrive found the residence almost “fully involved” with fire, EHFD officials said.
Help was called in from the Springs, Amagansett, Montauk, Bridgehampton, Southampton and North Sea fire departments for tankers, rapid intervention teams and for standby at East Hampton’s firehouse.
Residents who were home at the time managed to escape the flames safely. Although the main body of fire was extinguished relatively soon, firefighters worked for close to four hours to extinguish pockets of fire in hard-to-reach areas of the building, and eventually an excavator was called in to remove debris so firefighters could have access to areas in the basement that were still burning.
The fire was believed to have begun in the garage area of the residence, and the East Hampton Town fire marshal’s office is investigating the fire’s cause and origin.