Frankenstorm Sandy causes over a dozen fires across New York City

New York, Oct 30: Frankenstrom Sandy caused a major fire in the Breezy Point area of Queens, New York, engulfing 50 houses. Nearly 200 fire brigade staff have been rushed to the scene. One fire destroyed at least 50 homes in a flooded neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. The first firefighters on the scene found five houses ablaze, but the flames quickly spread to nearby properties.More than 190 firefighters are at the blaze in Breezy Point, a fire department spokesman said. Footage shot by NBC News in the early hours of the morning shows the beach community engulfed by flames.Fire officials say the blaze was reported around 11 pm Monday in an area flooded by superstorm Sandy that began sweeping through earlier.The neighborhood sits on the Rockaway peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. New York City was battered by flood water and strong winds throughout Monday night and in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. Storm-related fires broke out in five boroughs. Two of these blazes were in Brooklyn.At a paper recycling warehouse on 5th Street and 2nd Avenue shortly just before 9 p.m. firefighters had already put out the flames. Tom McCarthy, an FDNY battalion chief based in Red Hook, said, “The borough is alive, I'll put it that way,” he said. “Numerous fires.”Less than an hour later, there was another fire in a parking lot on Bond and President Street. A large R.V. in the lot was completely engulfed in flames and surrounded by firefighters. Witnesses said there had been multiple explosions coming from the vehicle. Within ten minutes, the firefighters had the blaze under control. In Breezy Point, one six alarm blaze destroyed a large number of homes. An FDNY spokesman said, many of these fires were probably a result of the storm.“It would seem that most of them are storm-related,” he said, going on to cite several factors that contributed to the hot night in New York. “No one's there, escalation being a lot quicker due to our response times being slowed down, or gas problems.”