ELLENVILLE – After a destructive fire that could have easily caused several fatalities, members of Ellenville's building department, police department, and fire department are being hailed as heroes for their efforts to ensure that every person living in a multi-dwelling house made it out unscathed.

A light fixture in the second-floor hallway in the house at 43 Maple Avenue, at the corner of Maple and Yankee Place, seems to have overloaded, starting the fire, which has been ruled by the Ulster County Arson Task Force as an accidental electrical fire.

"It's old wiring," says Ellenville Building Code Enforcement Officer Brian Schug. "Most likely, it's an ungrounded outlet, and when you have the building using a minimal amount of electricity, say in the middle of the night, when everyone's sleeping, lights are off, this hallway light remained on. So the building lode was more concentrated at that outlet than it normally was. It could've sparked on itself and just had the right condition to start a small fire in the ceiling."

Making matters worse, the house was constructed with what's known as a "balloon frame." The term signifies that the structure was built without firebreaks that are standard in today's construction practices, and as such, once the fire broke out, it was able to spread up and down the walls of the house and onto the third floor, effectively blocking off the stairwells as means to escape the fire. When asked how many houses in the village were made with balloon frames, Schug estimated that it was around 80 percent.

At about 1 a.m., the smoke detectors were blaring, waking first floor-resident Yolanda Cianci and her boyfriend Ernesto Peraza from their sleep. When Peraza opened the apartment's door, black smoke billowed into the room.

"He turned on the hallway light, opened up the hallway door, and nothing but a big black cloud of smoke came in, and blew out the overhead light in the hallway and turned everything black," recalls Cianci.

Once they realized that the building was on fire, the two began to wake as many of their neighbors in the six-apartment house as possible. Fortunately, Peraza had a pocket knife on him, and was able to cut the cloth which kept the fire escape ladder in place. According to Cianci, Peraza risked his life by climbing up from the first floor to go to the higher floors and cut the cloth. Apparently, the latch which was to have held the ladder up hadn't been working, and so the house's owner, Paul Dropkin, tied the ladder and told his tenants what they would have to do in case of a fire.

In addition to Peraza's quick thinking, Cianci is also grateful for the detail-oriented work of Nordeen Pickell, the village's housing inspector, who very recently admonished the residents of the home to make sure that the path to fire exits was kept clear.

"She was ragging on us to keep it clear — that's why we were able to get out, because that fire escape area was clear," says Cianci, thanking Pickell for her work.

One disabled resident, Miguel Garcia, was unable to exit the house on his own, but fortunately a resident who lived in a neighboring house was on the scene and sprang into action. Labeled a "good Samaritan" by Police Chief Phil Mattracion, Thomas Ballard ran into the burning building to rescue Garcia, carrying him down the fire escape and bringing him to Ellenville Fire Chief George Budd's vehicle, an act for which Budd was both extremely impressed and thankful.

Sadly, while all the people living in the house were able to escape the blaze, Cianci's 13-year-old dog, Patch, didn't make it out and perished in the fire. Cianci herself was the lone resident who needed medical treatment after suffering smoke inhalation.

The many fire departments who responded and were available to back each other up, including Ellenville, Napanoch, Kerhonkson, and Accord, were able to put the fire out by about 5 a.m., but firefighters were called back to the scene at 7 a.m. because the house began to rekindle. A joint decision was made by Brian Schug and George Budd to demolish the building so as to prevent future flare ups. Residents were asked what possessions, like photographs or medications, they would like firefighters to salvage before the house was destroyed. Fortunately, workers were able to retrieve some items before the structure was demolished.

By the start of the week, the displaced residents were all staying in rooms at the Village Motel. However, their future remains unclear. Because none of them had renter's insurance, they will not receive any compensation for what was lost in the fire, though Dropkin says that since the fire, he's been making calls to other landlords he knows to try and find them places to live.

Many are noting how fortunate it was for all of the residents to make it out of the fire unhurt.

"I just want to give a lot of credit to the building department; I want to give a lot of credit to the fire department; I want to give credit to my neighbors on the block who went out of their way," says Dropkin. "They lost everything. That's the saddest part."

While the fire has been ruled as an accident, Schug said that he and the building department would be investigating the fact that the fire escapes were tied, though it seems unlikely that Dropkin would receive anything more than a fine, if that.

"Let's say we discovered [the tied fire escape] during a routine inspection. We would issue [the landlord] a notice of violation, and we would give him time to repair the violation. In that instance, it may wind up not being anything if he were to repair it within the time frame specified. That's what we do when we do inspections — we look for compliance, not to fine somebody," says Brian Schug.

"It worked out well. Everything that should've worked in the building worked for escape, and about 18 people managed to get out of the building that started on fire at 1 o'clock in the morning," says Schug.

"You don't hear that too much."