Massive Fire Destroys Mount Vernon Bakery
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A fire tore through a wholesale bakery facility in Mount Vernon Monday morning.
The fire broke out before 7 a.m. at Artuso Pastry on the corner of 12th Avenue and Third Street, police said.
"The fire just took off on us, right across the roof," one firefighter said. "There's a lot of material there -- cooking oil, wood pallets, a couple of different layers of roof -- it's just a hard fire to get to."
Flames raged for several hours and billowing gray smoke could be seen for miles.
"I thought it was an explosion, that's what I heard at first," one neighbor said.
"When we smelled the smoke it was like a panic button went off," said neighbor Veronica Kirkland, who initially thought her home was on fire when she woke up. "It came through the windows, it was like suffocating us in the house. We came out and said, 'What's going on?'"
A few workers inside the bakery at the time of the fire made it out safely and alerted a resident next door, WCBS 880's Jim Smith reproted.
"They told me there was a fire, so I ran out of the house," the neighbor said.
A firefighter in the building was hurt and rushed to the hospital, but is expected to be OK.
Artuso Pastry is well-known across the Tri-State area. The Mount Vernon factory supplies all the goods for its stores in Mamaroneck and in the Bronx near Arthur Avenue, CBS2's Ilana Gold reported.
"We're used to smelling cakes and bread and now we smell fire," Kirkland said.
Bakery owner Anthony Artuso is promising that after 15 years in Mount Vernon, they'll continue his family's 70-year-old business.
"It's a building, it's going to be replaced," Artuso said.
But Artuso conceded the fire couldn't have come at a worse time for the business known for its cannolis, Gold reported.
Thousands of people from across the country have already placed orders for the holidays, and now there just aren't enough.
"Unfortunately we can't fill those orders," Artuso said.
But the bakery owner said he's determined to look past the devastation and find a place to keep baking.
"We'll be back. We've been here more than 70 years, so it'll take more than that to keep us out of the game," he said.
Artuso said he's already looking at spots to move into. At this point, he said he's not sure if he wants to rebuild.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
"It may have been the boiler or something that may have exploded, we're not sure yet," Artuso said.
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