NY Daily News – January 14, 2015
by Pete Donohue, Tina Moore
Fire marshals have determined that a fire at Penn Station on Tuesday morning was accidental, caused by temporary wiring used for lighting a construction area, the FDNY said. The fire, initially deemed suspicious, tore through the construction site in the morning, scuttling some train service and sending two firefighters to a hospital with minor injuries, officials said.
More than 150 firefighters battled the blaze that engulfed two levels of a construction site near the Long Island Rail Road concourse at the W. 33rd St. and Eighth Ave. transit hub, FDNY Chief James Leonard said.
The firefighters “braved very tough conditions going down there” and encountered an “extensive amount of fire,” Leonard said.
The fire took about three hours to extinguish and was under control by about 5:30 a.m.
The fire erupted at a “construction shanty” in the west end of the Long Island Rail Road area of the station where a new exit is being built as part of Amtrak’s Moynihan Station project, officials said.
There was damage to LIRR’s West End Concourse and that was closed off, MTA spokesman Salvatore Arena said. He said there was no damage to LIRR operations, except water on tracks 19, 20 and 21.
Subway trains bypassed the station between 2:57 a.m. and 5:38 a.m. When service resumed, the A, C and E trains experienced delays.
Some trains on the Hempstead and Babylon branches of the LIRR were canceled or diverted to Hunterspoint Ave., Queens, or Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn because of damage.
The injured firefighters were taken to Bellevue Hospital. Engineers were examining the building to determine what structural damage was caused, officials said.
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