Second Street fatal fire

A state judge has dismissed the Town of Riverhead from one of two lawsuits filed after the fatal November 2021 fire on Second Street in Riverhead, where five people died.

Four years after the fire that destroyed a Riverhead home and claimed five lives, survivor Keith Polchies marks the day with quiet remembrance.

Eight new townhouse apartments are planned for the East Second Street site of a historic home destroyed in a 2021 fire that killed five people.

The father of the 16-year-old girl who was killed in a November 2021 house fire on East Second Street has brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the Town of Riverhead and the owner of the home.

The owner at the home of the time of the fire that killed five family members trapped in a third-floor apartment has pleaded guilty to renting three apartments in the Second Street home without permits and assessed penalties totaling $1,500.

The estates of two people who died in the 2021 Second Street house fire filed a lawsuit last week against Riverhead Town and the property owner, alleging that both parties’ “negligence” and “recklessness” in maintaining the safety of the property contributed to the victims’ deaths.

Community members gathered on East Second Street last night for a vigil in memory of the five members of the Rivera family, who perished in a house fire one year ago.

The home on Second Street where five people perished in a fire last November was demolished today, on the eve of a scheduled Town Board public hearing on whether the charred remains of the historic three-story residence was an "unsafe structure" requiring demolition.

The five family members who died in the Nov. 16 fire on East Second Street in Riverhead were trapped in a front bedroom of the third-floor rental apartment, where they had apparently sought refuge from the flames that engulfed the home.

Town officials say a letter of pre-existing use issued in 2009 exempted the Second Street House from state law and regulations requiring a second means of egress from the third-floor apartment. Inconsistencies in town records obtained through the Freedom of Information Law raise questions.