Fire strikes Windridge condos

By Nancy Kriz and Ginny Privitar

CHESTER — The community is rallying to help residents displaced by a fire that gutted two homes and damaged several others Monday night at the Windridge condominium complex on Eagleton Drive in Chester, near the Monroe border.

Several family pets died in the blaze. There were no other injuries.

About 100 firefighters from various local fire companies responded to the scene, according to reports.

Photos posted on Facebook showed the enormity of the blaze as firefighters fought to keep flames from spreading.

Facebook postings spread quickly on Monday night, like the fire itself. Pam Schwartz wrote: “Tonight my mother's home burnt down to the ground and they have lost everything they owned, including all their emergency cash, clothes, furniture, and home....Luckily all the family members survived, but they lost their beloved dog Lola and ferret Zoe. They were renting and did not have insurance."

Bob Favara, the Town of Chester fire chief, said the cause of the fire is undetermined. Firefighters were called out at 8 p.m. Their work wasn't done until past midnight.

The fire went to three alarms. Two units were gutted, two had smoke and water damage, and two more had just smoke damage, Favara said. Each Windridge building contains six units.

"The Chester Fire Department and all the supporting agencies did a great job of keeping the fire from spreading," said Steve Neuhaus, the Town of Chester supervisor. "With the wind it could have been a greater tragedy if we had somebody injured or a loss of life. They prevented it from spreading to other units."

The American Red Cross was a great help, he said.

"Thank God for them," said Neuhaus. "They come in when people have lost everything, and they set them up with a temporary place to live. It doesn’t solve all the problems. But it’s a comfortable position to put people in when they suffered such tragedy.”

Condos share space
The spread of fire in condos may be due to the way they are built, Favara said. Three of the units affected by the Windridge fire shared a common attic space, he said.

A fire at the Whispering Hills condominium complex in October 2010 broke out in the fireplace of one unit, while black smoke billowed out of the fireplace in the unit next door.

Hundreds of new condominiums proposed for the town and village of Chester are before the planning boards, in various stages of progress.

Town of Chester Supervisor Steve Neuhaus said, “I don’t know if condos are more prone (to fire), but any time you have more people together, the risk goes up. With the warm weather, people are doing more things outside."

The fire departments that responded to the Windridge fire include Chester, Monroe, Goshen, Greenwood Lake, South Blooming Grove, Florida and Warwick. On standby were Washingtonville, Tuxedo and Warwick.

Can a volunteer fire department like Chester keep up with the pace of growth?

“We always need more volunteers," Favara said. "It’s very difficult now because of the stringent training and requirements. It’s more difficult because fewer people work locally. It’s not like the old days, when the bell would ring and the farmers would leave the fields."