Wading River firefighters quickly stop fire at Shoreham power plant generator

There was a fire at the Shoreham power plant this afternoon.

The Wading River Fire Department, with the assistance of a crash truck from Gabreski airport in Westhampton, quickly extinguished the fire, which was apparently caused by a diesel fuel leak, Wading River Fire Chief Eric Cohen said. The truck from Gabreski was brought in to spray foam on the fire, he said.

The Brookhaven Town Fire Marshal is investigating, Cohen said.

The fire was sparked by leaking lubricating oil, said Wendy Ladd, a spokeswoman for National Grid, which operates the facility, whose natural gas-powered generators supply power to the LIPA grid when demand is high, Ladd said.

“It was a small fire, extinguished within half an hour. There was no permanent damage and no injuries. It was really no big deal,” Ladd said. She said she had “no information about any diesel fuel leak.”

Firefighters from Riverhead, Rocky Point, Shoreham, Manorville and Shirley responded to the scene to assist Wading River, Cohen said. The call came in

“Third Assistant Chief Kevin McQueeney, the first chief on the scene, had the incident command and did a very good job,” Cohen said. Cohen answered the alarm from Gabreski airport himself, accompanying the Gabreski fire truck. Cohen is currently on military duty at the air base.

“We were wondering what was going on there this afternoon,” Sid Bail of Wading River, a longtime member of the Shoreham Advisory Committee, said of the commotion.

“We heard fire trucks and sirens and saw a helicopter hovering overhead,” Bail said.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl