Several Cars Damaged In Car Fire On East Side
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - A line of parked cars caught fire one by one Friday in Midtown East.
As CBS2's Dave Carlin reported, cellphone video showed the block-long inferno. Flames stretched down the north side of 58th Street near Second Avenue, consuming car after car.
Seven cars were reduced to toasted shells of what they once had been. One of the vehicles that was destroyed was George Attard's brand new minivan.
"I got a call from my doorman who said, 'Your car is on fire,'" Attard said. "Everything started from the van – from the plumbing van."
The work van where the fire started belongs to Gold's Plumbing. Its driver told investigators he had just pulled over on 58th Street between First and Second avenues around 9 a.m.
A smoky, mechanical problem forced him out of the van. And then came a boom, followed by the fire that snaked along a trail of leaking fuel downhill.
"The gasoline ran under the cars and I guess cars went on fire," Attard said.
Residents of the apartment building closest to the burned out vehicles were inside. They heard explosions and went to the windows, took out cell phones and took video.
"They had to break windows to put the fire out," said Mike McNenny.
McNenny shot video from his seventh-floor apartment window.
"I was kind of like a little bit scared, like, well I wonder if the building's, going to, you know, like, go on fire," he said. "But like I said, the Fire Department did a good job."
"I looked out the window, saw cars on fire, and I came right downstairs," added Julie Leventhal. "Luckily. everybody was OK."
Leventhal said the shock only briefly rocked neighbors. No one was hurt, and the block quickly reopened to traffic.
CBS2 has made calls to the owners of Gold's Plumbing for comment. They had not called back late Friday afternoon.