Long Islanders Routed By Fire Return To Homes

Evacuees were allowed back home Saturday as exhausted firefighters cleaned up a wind-driven forest fire that had threatened high-priced beach resort communities.

Authorities said the 6,000-acre blaze looked like arson, and critics asked why promised federal airplanes to bomb the fire with water didn’t arrive until Saturday.

The sky was bright blue Saturday, minus the thick billows of smoke that clouded eastern Long Island for two days. Bulldozers had been used to create a dirt ring around the perimeter of the 5-mile-by-1-1/2-mile fire zone.

Nonetheless, officials balked at declaring the fire contained, because of the slight chance that it could flare up again without warning in the midst of million-dollar real estate. The area has not had rain in 19 days.

“It’s amazing that we’ve lost over 6,000 acres at this point, and we’ve not had a single fatality,” said Gov. George Pataki. Some 40 firefighters suffered an assortment of minor injuries.

However, the blaze feeding on tinder-dry pines and oaks some 70 miles east of New York City had destroyed one home and a lumber yard, damaged seven other homes and a train station, and shut down railroads and roadways.

Shortly after noon Saturday, some 400 evacuated Westhampton residents got permission to return home. Some had spent two nights sleeping in high school gyms or even their cars.

Joseph Monteith, chief of department for the Suffolk County Police, said arson was suspected in the blaze that started Thursday. Two other fires were reported that night along Long Island’s south shore.

Sources said an aerial investigation showed, among other things, that the fire first burned in a straight line - atypical for an accidental fire.