A four-alarm fire scorched a commercial building along Hylan Boulevard on Staten Island on Saturday, but spared a nearby historic church, the fire department said.<\/p>\n
The blaze left two people with minor injuries. That included a firefighter, who sustained burns to his leg, Kevin Woods, the department\u2019s chief of operations, said at a press conference on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
The nearby Old Church of St. Joachim and St. Anne was not damaged in the blaze, Woods said. The exterior of the church was featured in Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s \u201cThe Godfather Part II\u201d as the site of the iconic baptism scene.<\/p>\n
Dozens of firefighters responded to the blaze, which started in a vacant warehouse shortly before 6 p.m., Woods said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon arrival, we had heavy fire throughout the building,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s heavy, heavy damage to the structure. The roof did collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fire then spread to the commercial building at 6450 Hylan Boulevard between Sharrot Avenue and Mt. Loretto.<\/p>\n
Emergency responders were able to contain the fire by 8:27 p.m.<\/p>\n
Woods said heavy winds made it especially challenging.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very windy out here tonight,\u201d Woods said. \u201cOur units did a great job with many of the flying embers, preventing additional structures from going on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two schools and a senior center were \u201cnot affected by this whatsoever,\u201d Woods said.<\/p>\n
The source of the blaze is still under investigation.<\/p>\n
Woods said firefighters would remain at the site overnight to \u201cput water on the hotspots.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A four-alarm fire scorched a commercial building along Hylan Boulevard on Staten Island on Saturday, but spared a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-376296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}