--April 13--NEW YORK--FDNY fire marshals arrested a contractor for allegedly starting an inferno that ripped through a Queens apartment building, displacing dozens of residents and sending nearly a dozen firefighters to the hospital with minor injuries.
WNBC News reports that Declan McElhatton, 53, of Maintenance Asset Management in Yonkers, was arrested in connection with the blaze, which burned for hours at the six-story building in Elmhurst. The FDNY plans to charge him with arson and reckless endangerment after he allegedly used a blowtorch on the roof without a permit.
The fire is believed to have started somewhere between the roof and the ceiling of the building's top floor. The FDNY tweeted Wednesday that the cause was "open flame in close proximity to combustibles." Over 200 of the city's bravest responded to the five-alarm fire and 11 suffered injuries.
WCBS News reports that McElhatton was arraigned Thursday night in Queens Criminal Court. Bail was set at $50,000 bond or $30,000 cash, and he's due back in court April 27. If convicted, he faces up to four years in prison.
A source told CBS that the FDNY does not believe McElhatton deliberately set the fire, but he was charged because of the torch. After a series of roof fires in 1999, the city got tough on contractors who use blowtorches for repairs. Underneath the roof membrane on many of the buildings is wood. The building had two permits with the city, one for equipment -- a pipe scaffold -- and the other for general construction for facade and balcony restoration. There was no permit allowing blowtorch work on the roof.
Building resident Richard Guerrero told NBC that the work was being done above his apartment and that the contractor had been remodeling the floor using blowtorches.
Neighbor Jay Banfield, whose apartment was left waterlogged after the fire, said he's happy an arrest was made.
"We knew something was up," he told NBC.
There was no answer at Mcelhatton's home in Westchester on Thursday, and his attorney declined to speak to NBC.
Alex Esdelle, who escaped the fire with only the clothes on his back and a cellphone, said of Mcelhatton, "He deserves everything that comes to him."
