Investigation Of Fatal Noyac Fire Focuses On Outdoor Cooking Area

Investigators are focusing on an outdoor grilling area as the likely source of the fire that killed two sisters from Maryland in a late-night fire earlier this month at the Noyac house their family was renting.

The outdoor kitchen was on a rear wooden deck that appears to be where the fire originated, Southampton Town Emergency Management Administrator Ryan Murphy said this week.

“As of right now, the investigation is indicating the most likely area of origin was the outdoor kitchen,” Murphy said on Monday, adding that some recent media reports have misrepresented what investigators were saying about the source of the fire. “Not the cause — the origin. Some people have said it was the cause. Cause and origin are two different things, and this is still not a definitive determination.”

Investigators can apply a broad array of understanding about how a fire acts and how a burned structure reveals clues that point to how the flames spread. The pattern of the burned areas, the depth to which wood is charred in different locations, even the extent to which wires and other materials have melted can indicate where a fire started burning first and how it spread.

“Fire typically works its way out in a V pattern from the original, and you’re going to see the worst damage closer to where the fire started, because it burned longer,” Murphy said. “The char depths on structural members, closer to the fire there will be deeper char depths.”

Photos of the rear of the house following the fire show that a section of the pool patio decking is heavily charred around the remains of the outdoor kitchen, and that the exterior damage to the house is focused only around the one corner where the outdoor kitchen had been — only the metal framing and a countertop remain.

Investigators returned to the house at the corner of Spring Lane and Noyac Road last week with a search warrant to further examine the smoke alarm system in the house, which has been the subject of much speculation about whether it operated properly when the fire broke out.

Five members of the Weiner family, who had rented the house and moved in just days prior, were asleep when the fire broke out some time around 3 a.m. on August 3. Lewis Weiner told firefighters that he awoke to the sound of breaking glass, not a smoke alarm, and fled the house with his wife. Their 23-year old son, Zachary, escaped by leaping from a second-floor window.

But sisters Lindsay, 19, and Jillian, 21, who were in another second-floor bedroom, did not emerge. Their father attempted to go back into the house to get them, but was blocked by the flames.

Firefighters who arrived on the scene were able to locate the unconscious girls and carry them out of the house, but were unable to revive them. They were both declared dead at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital a short time later.

Murphy has confirmed that the home did have smoke detectors but has acknowledged that there are doubts as to whether they were working, or worked as they should have, when the fire broke out.

At least some of the anecdotal evidence that has fueled the doubts has been made public: Firefighters have said they did not hear the alarms going off when they arrived and entered the burning house.

Sag Harbor Fire Chief Kevin O’Brien Jr. said in an interview shortly after the blaze that smoke alarms are typically a nuisance to firefighters entering a burning building, but that nobody noticed one going off at the Spring Lane house.

Murphy, who is volunteer with the Patchogue Fire Department, echoed that sentiment this week.

“First responders and individuals on the scene reported to us that they didn’t hear anything,” Murphy said. “Right away, that makes the functionality questionable because typically you hear them going off still. Even if the smoke detector closest to the fire has burned and stopped, others will still be going off.

“So that was the main subject of the warrant that was executed last week,” he added. “The focus of that recheck was going back to take another look at that system and determine its functionality.”

The official said he did not know when fire marshals would be able to conclude their investigation and say what the cause of the fire was.

The owners of the home, Peter and Pamela Miller, will face code violation citations on Friday in Southampton Town Justice Court. Most town code citations are minor violations that do not rise to the level of criminality, but some could be misdemeanor level, Murphy said, depending on the seriousness of the violation. He said there will be “multiple” violations charged.

The town has said that the house did not have a rental permit, as required, and may not have had an updated certificate of occupancy showing some improvements that had been made.

Southampton Town’s rental permit requirement is among the most demanding in the region and requires that a home undergo a certified safety inspection and meet all latest New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code requirements and that all of a home’s improvements be shown on the certificate of occupancy, which itself would require a safety inspection.

Whether the outdoor kitchen was on the latest certificate of occupancy for the house is not yet public knowledge.