Fire Destroys Building at Mount Kisco Yeshiva Complex
Demolition of the charred remnants of a Mount Kisco yeshiva building began on Monday less than three days after a raging inferno raced through the structure.
The three-alarm fire was reported at about 6:30 p.m. last Friday as firefighters from multiple agencies throughout the area responded to the scene at the Nitra Yeshiva complex on Nitra Road.
The building had been occupied when the fire was detected but everyone who had been inside was able to get out in time, said Mount Kisco Fire Chief Al Bueti. One firefighter sustained minor injuries.
At about midnight, the blaze was declared under control, but firefighters were called back six times over the weekend and through Monday afternoon to extinguish pockets of fire that repeatedly rekindled.
“The reason why it was going on for so long, you had the original fire from Friday night and then the building collapsed, the floors caved in, and once that happened you had fire burning underneath the rubble that we could not access,” Bueti said.
Volunteers from as many as 20 local fire departments and EMS agencies responded to the scene or helped to cover for those departments that were fighting the blaze.
Compounding the problem is that the building did not have its own water source to fight a fire so water had to be trucked to the site, about a half-mile up a fairly steep road.
The blaze is being investigated by the Westchester County Cause and Origin Team, but is not deemed suspicious, Bueti said. He said with the building’s ongoing demolition there is a possibility that the cause of the fire may never be known.
Bueti said the building was made of standard materials, including bricks, wood and masonry with steel supports.
The Examiner called Nitra Yeshiva’s headquarters in Brooklyn on Monday morning, but an unidentified man refused to answer questions and said no one would comment on the incident. According to its website, the yeshiva, which formed in Europe in the early 20th century, bought the former Brewster estate in Mount Kisco in 1948.
Classrooms were contained in the destroyed building, which was one of an undetermined number of buildings.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/