“The fire started…
By Tien-Shun Lee
A three-alarm fire blazed through a Long Island City auto parts warehouse early Sunday evening, causing the roof of the building to collapse and damaging a neighboring warehouse containing printing press machines for a Greek newspaper.
“The fire started in the left corner of the ceiling area of the warehouse,” said Kawing Cho, 17, who was working for the Sterling International Co. auto parts business at 41-26 27th St. in a summer job.
“We tried to put it out with fire extinguishers. Then we noticed that the back of the building was also on fire,” Cho said. “We thought we had put out the ceiling fire, but then it restarted again. Once we knew we couldn’t put it out, we cleared out.”
The owner of the company, Andrew Algava, was taken to Elmhurst hospital with minor injuries from smoke inhalation, Cho said. The other three people, including Cho, who were in the auto parts warehouse at the time of the fire, were unhurt.
Eight of the approximately 150 firefighters who battled the blaze suffered minor injuries, said Fire Department spokesman Paul Iannizzotto.
According to Iannizzotto, the fire was called in at 4:45 p.m. About 45 minutes later, the roof of the auto parts warehouse, which had been supported by triangular beams, collapsed after the building had been evacuated.
The cause of the fire was being investigated, Iannizzotto said.
“Thank goodness no one was hurt,” said Algava’s wife, Shirley Norwood, who had been sorting papers in one of the warehouse offices when the fire broke out.
The other employees and her husband had been packing boxes and taking down metal shelving in the main warehouse when they noticed the fire, Norwood said.
Algava’s father established the auto parts company in 1947, said Norwood, and Algava took over the company from him four years ago. The company had been at its Long Island City location since 1965, she added.
An employee of The National Herald, a daily Greek newspaper with an office and printing press behind Sterling International Co., said he called 911 after noticing fire and smoke coming from the roof of the printing press warehouse.
Although some of the newspaper’s printing press machinery had been soaked by water from fire hoses, it would not stop the newspaper from coming out the next day, said the assistant manager of distribution, who was the only person in the news facility when the fire broke out.
“Ninety years and it’s never missed a day,” he said, as a reporter for the paper snapped photographs of fire trucks. “If we can’t print here, we’ll print somewhere else.”
Reach reporter Tien-Shun Lee by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com, or call 718-229-0300, ext. 155.
