On Tuesday, the blocks of tightly packed bungalows and two-story houses that had characterized Breezy Point, Queens, were gone, replaced by smoke and ashes.

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Family Survival Protocol

Disaster Management

Wind-Driven Flames Reduce Scores of Homes to Embers in Queens Enclave

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

On Tuesday, the blocks of tightly packed bungalows and two-story houses that had characterized Breezy Point, Queens, were gone, replaced by smoke and ashes. More Photos »

By SAM DOLNICK and COREY KILGANNON

 

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Cars sat amid the burned rubble after the Breezy Point fire. At least 111 homes were destroyed and 20 more damaged, officials said, though no serious injuries were reported. More Photos »

By the morning, the fire in Breezy Point, Queens, stood as one of the worst in New York City’s history: whole acres of residential housing scorched as if leveled by a forest fire. At least 111 homes were destroyed and 20 more damaged, officials said, though no serious injuries were reported.

The Northeast was prepared for roiling floods, historic storm surges and locomotive winds, but few predicted that some of the worst destruction would come not from water but from fire. Flames tore through working-class enclaves in Queens and rows of mansions in Old Greenwich, Conn., and erupted in two dozen locations in the boroughs alone. Throughout the region, the storm was illuminated by showers of green and red sparks from burned-out transformers and skipping power lines.

“We expected a flood and we got a fire,” said Bill Valentine, a member of the Rockaway Point Fire Department.

If curtains of fire accompanied by rolling waves and pounding rain were not unlikely enough, there was this: the still-smoldering neighborhood of Breezy Point was home to scores of firefighters and police officers, many of whom had evacuated the area and were busy protecting people and property elsewhere in the city.

On Tuesday, the streets of tightly packed bungalows and two-story houses were gone, reduced to smoking ash by the flames. After the fire and the storm, longtime residents wandered about as if in a daze, holding maps of their once-familiar streets as they tried to determine whose house used to be where. With chimneys their only guides, they struggled to make sense of the jumble of charred timbers, ruined beach chairs and broken mailboxes.

“That was Fulton Walk, that was Ocean Avenue,” said a firefighter standing amid the wreckage. “They’re all gone.”