Homeowners Avoid Damage from Brush Fires

Residents of Dorothy Street and nearby blocks near the border of East Setauket and Port Jefferson Station escaped property damage on Sunday afternoon after firefighters battled several brush fires over the course of two hours in the wooded area behind their homes.

Setauket Fire Department chief Brendan Brown said approximately 100 firefighters from the Setauket, Terryville and Port Jefferson fire departments responded with seven trucks to reports of heavy smoke coming from the woods shortly before 3 p.m. He said they found as many as four separate "wind-driven" fires which took around two hours to extinguish, but none of the numerous homes along the edges of the woods suffered any damage.

"It came up right to the property lines on Dorothy," Brown said. "With the wind, we had a great concern for the houses."

The cause of the brush fires is under investigation.

One resident of nearby Woodchuck Lane who gave his name as John C. said he saw "a lot of smoke and flames six inches high" covering a wide area.

Rocco Papandrea, a resident of Dorothy Street, was outside playing with two of his children when he smelled the fire and brought the kids inside, saying he "didn't trust the smell."

"It definitely smelled like garbage," he said. "It seemed like something plastic was burning."

Another Dorothy Street resident, Luann Picarella, thought it was "a woodsy smell, like a fireplace." She was one of the residents who reported the fire, and emergency responders used her yard to access the woods.

"There's always brush fires back there," she said. "It was pretty decent. It was a good one. Terryville and Setauket [fire departments] arrived extremely promptly. They were great."

The wooded area is a county-owned parcel of more than 36 acres which includes the former sand pits and Lawrence Aviation property, now crossed by makeshift trails and clearings and areas where some residents said illegal ATV and dirt bike riding takes place. The property was recently designated by the county for development as a .