Five roses for five lives: Survivor marks four years since fatal Second Street fire

The lot where the stately, century-old Victorian on Second Street once stood remains empty and overgrown, vegetation slowly reclaiming the fire-scarred landscape.

A small display of flowers and a plaque in front of the lot memorialize the five lives lost in a fast-moving blaze at 46 East Second Street on Nov. 16, 2021.

Five lives lost in a third-floor bedroom

The residents who perished that night were all members of a Guatemalan family. The oldest, Zonia Dinora Rivera, was 41. The youngest, her daughter Andrea Isamar González, was just 16. Andrea had arrived in New York the month before to join her mother in Riverhead. Zonia’s son, Carlos Cifredo Peñate Rivera, 24, and her nephews, Douglas Edgardo Rivera Aguirre, 24, and Carlos Alberto Ramos Aguirre, 22 — who all lived with her — also died that night.

The five were trapped in a front bedroom on the third floor of the home, where they apparently sought refuge from the rapidly spreading flames, according to Suffolk County Police. The home’s central stairway — their only means of escape — collapsed in the fire, as did part of the third floor.

Their bodies, badly burned, were identified by the Suffolk County Medical Examiner using dental records, fingerprints, and DNA. The cause of death for all five was smoke inhalation.

One can only imagine the terror of their last moments — huddled together in a small room, surrounded by fire, smoke filling the air.

‘Fire! Fire!’ — a survivor’s memory

The memory of that night still haunts Keith Polchies, who lived with his girlfriend in one of the two second-floor apartments. He discovered the fire after returning from walking his dog late that evening. He smelled smoke, he said in a sworn statement to police. After going back outside, he saw the wicker couch on the front porch in flames. He tried to put the fire out with an extinguisher, then ran back inside shouting for everyone to get out.

Polchies, his girlfriend Cindy Wilson, the landlord Carmela Cannella (who lived on the first floor), and second-floor tenants Loraine Starsiak and her son Adam, all escaped through a rear door. Flames had already engulfed the porch and front hall.

“It was rough,” he said with a sigh. As they fled, the home’s windows were breaking from the heat.

But the third-floor tenants never made it out.

Yesterday afternoon, Polchies placed five long-stemmed red roses on the edge of the vacant lot — each marked with the first name of a victim. Every year, he brings flowers to the site to mark the anniversary of the tragedy.

His voice catches with emotion as he remembers that night. He wonders if he could have done something more. He wonders if they heard him shouting “Fire! Fire!” — and whether things might have been different if he’d known the Spanish word and shouted that instead.

“My biggest regret… I didn’t have enough time to get upstairs to the third floor,” Polchies said. He and the other survivors escaped with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Polchies, 60, had rented his apartment from Cannella for nearly 20 years.

The landlord, the permits, and the aftermath

“She’s a good person,” Polchies said of his former landlord. Cannella was always kind and helpful, he said. “She didn’t do anything wrong.” He said he feels terrible that people have assumed otherwise.

Cannella, who bought the three-family home in 1983, had valid town permits to rent all three apartments — but those permits had expired on March 7, 2020. Riverhead Town issued her three criminal summonses just three weeks before the fire. The apartments hadn’t been inspected since 2018, when the most recent biennial rental permits were issued.

In June 2023, Cannella pleaded guilty to town code violations for operating the rentals without permits and paid a $1,500 fine.

After the Riverhead Town Board initiated proceedings to deem the house an unsafe structure — which would have allowed the town to demolish the building and bill her for it — Cannella had the home torn down and the lot cleared in October 2022.

She later sold the vacant, cleared land for $500,000 to 46 East 2nd Project LLC. A site plan filed in January 2024 proposes eight 950-square-foot, two-bedroom townhouses in two two-story buildings on the 0.33-acre lot. The applicant, Tamer Pepemehmetoglu of the Sag Harbor-based Houseworks, is listed on the application.

Cannella, now 75, lives in a rental apartment in Center Moriches, according to testimony she gave in a court proceeding in November 2024.

In the aftermath of the fire, the Riverhead Town Board amended the town’s rental housing code. As of June 2022, all third-floor rental units — and any building with more than two rental units — must have a secondary means of emergency egress, fire sprinklers, and interconnected smoke detectors. The term for rental permits was also shortened from two years to one, allowing more frequent safety inspections.

Two civil lawsuits against the Town of Riverhead and Cannella are still working their way through Suffolk County Supreme Court. The suits, filed by relatives of the victims, allege negligence in property maintenance and rental oversight. Court records show both cases remain active, with pre-trial motions ongoing.

What caused the fire

The events of Nov. 16, 2021 are laid out in stark terms in court filings and official reports.

The fire began before 10:30 p.m. on the covered front porch, when recently extinguished cigarette butts discarded in a plastic receptacle sparked a fire. The flames ignited a cushioned wicker couch, which then spread to the wooden shingles and the exterior of the structure. The blaze also destroyed a carport and ignited a car parked beneath it.

Flames entered the home through the first-floor windows and/or doors, based on an analysis of burn patterns. The front entrance — just steps from where the fire started — became a funnel for flames that raced up the central staircase. The fire destroyed the stairway, caused part of the third floor to collapse, and left the upper levels impassable.

See: Trapped by blaze, five people died in third-floor apartment that lacked second means of egress (March 10, 2022)

Suffolk County Police arson detectives determined the cause of the fire was a discarded cigarette or cigarettes. Witnesses told police that Zonia’s son, Carlos, had been celebrating his 24th birthday with friends that night and had been on the porch until sometime after 10 p.m.

A mother’s journey from Guatemala ends in tragedy

An interview with Zonia’s sister, Laura Rivera, published on Nov. 18, 2021 by Tu Prensa Local, offers a glimpse into the lives lost.

Zonia came to the U.S. in 2010 from Jeréz Jutiapa, Guatemala, hoping to provide a better future for her children and eventually retire. She started her own cleaning business and earned the affection and respect of her clients in homes across the Hamptons.

During the summer, she worked seven days a week — “from 4 in the morning to 11 at night,” Laura told the Tu Prensa Local. The sisters worked together on the South Fork.

“She was a woman who fought for what she wanted, who never gave up — an example for all people to follow,” Laura said.

See: Grieving, baffled sister ponders tragedy that claimed five family members (Nov. 18, 2021)

One of 12 siblings, Zonia supported many members of her extended family. “She came [to the U.S.] first. She helped my nephew get his visa, then brought me. She got the visa for her son, and then for her daughter,” Laura said the day after the fire.

Andrea had been separated from her mother at the age of 4 and raised in Guatemala by her grandmother. She arrived in the U.S. on Oct. 8, 2021, finally reuniting with her mother and brother. Just two weeks before the fire, she had enrolled at Riverhead High School.

“Zonia was supremely happy to have her two children together, finally,” Laura said.

One of Zonia’s nephews, Douglas, had been orphaned at 10 months old and raised by Zonia. The other nephew, Carlos, was Douglas’s half-brother. All three young men — her son and nephews — worked in construction and were very close. They were, Laura said, “full of dreams and plans.”

Their dreams didn’t survive the fire. But their names and their memory do.