Man On LI House Fire That Killed 5: 'Why Couldn't I Save Them?'

RIVERHEAD, NY — What began as a regular night for a Riverhead man and his fiancee ended in tragedy when a raging fire ripped through the historic Long Island home where he'd lived for 15 years — leaving a family of five dead.

Keith Polchies said he and his fiancee, Cindy Wilson, were watching a movie that finished around 10 p.m.

"I always walk my dog Zeus right before I got to bed," Polchies said.

When he got back 10 minutes later, Polchies said he went upstairs and soon after, smelled smoke. Although the details are foggy in the panic that ensued, Polchies said he was told that his second-floor neighbor Adam Starsiak, who lived in the front apartment with his mother, Lori, yelled, "Fire!"

Polchies bounded out of his apartment and raced for the fire extinguisher.

"But there was no extinguishing that fire," he said. "It was massive."

Polchies was screaming at Cindy, telling her they had to get out, there was no time. He was wearing just shorts with a T-shirt and no shoes, Polchies said. Cindy threw on some clothes and they ran down the stairs with their dog, frantically calling for the building's landlord and owner on the first floor to get out, too.

The whole time, Polchies said, he was screaming at the top of his lungs, yelling "Fire!" But his five upstairs neighbors never came down. Never even came out of their door to see what was going on, he said.

Killed in the fire were Zonia Dinora Rivera Mendoza, 41, Carlos Alberto Ramos Aguirre, 25, Carlos Cífrelo Penate Rivera, 25 — Carlos died a day after his 25th birthday — Andrea Isamar Gonzalez Rivera, 16, and Douglas Edgardo Rivera Aguirre, 27. A mother, daughter, son, and two nephews, lost.

Polchies said he is wracked with anguish over their deaths. "Why couldn't I save them?" he said. "If only I could've gotten up to the third floor."

But there was no time for anything as the inferno raced through the 100-year-old wooden building.

"By the time Cindy and I got out, the entire house was in flames," he said.

Polchies wondered why his neighbors didn't come out, if perhaps a language barrier prevented them from realizing he was screaming that there was a fire. The what-ifs haunt: Just this week as he worked on his childhood family home in Flanders where he and Cindy are now living, he stopped, overcome with emotion and in tears, remembering the family who perished.

He heard their screams in the dark, cold night, he said.

He stared as the fire blew out the windows of the building he'd called home for more than a decade, Polchies said. "It was devastating."

Although EMTs were ready with warm blankets in the ambulance, Polchies said he couldn't sit; he watched, horrified, as the structure burned and his world crumbled.

"I remember thinking, 'I am going to be homeless,'" he said. "I never thought something like this could happen."

In the days since, Polchies has been in touch with the Starsiaks, longtime family friends; he found them the apartment in the home, he said. He plans to reconnect with them soon; right now, mother and son are living in a hotel.

Through the kindness of family, Polchies said, he and Cindy are not homeless: The fire brought his family together as they immediately offered him the home where his late mother had lived, his family home, as a haven after the fire.

Polchies ran out with nothing; Wilson grabbed just her phone. Inside the ruins of the burned-out house, he said, were the years of memories that make up a life.

After the fire, he went back to try and salvage something from the rubble, but found nothing in his own apartment. He was, however, able to find some important items for his neighbors, things that he was able to return to them — a small mercy in the face of unthinkable loss.

Back at the house — the historic home, once so beautiful that Polchies said he'd always admired the house and wanted to live there years before he'd ever moved in — Polchies said a portion of the rear of the house had caved in and crumbled. He saw a TV that had fallen from above into what had been his apartment. An extra refrigerator was found fallen into one of the other apartments below, he said.

Years of memories were woven into the grand Victorian, summer nights spent outside on the expansive porch. Days spent decorating the house for Christmas, he said.

He lost everything, Polchies said: Photographs, his former dog's ashes, all his clothes and belongings. Also lost, he said, was the card he'd saved from his mother's wake.

But despite all that was lost, Polchies said there were miracles: When he arrived with Cindy at his childhood home, where he once lived with his mother, the first thing he saw there was a copy of the very same card from his mother's funeral.

A sign, he believes, that she was watching over him that night. That he was meant for some reason he doesn't even know yet to survive and go on to live a life filled with meaning.

He is so grateful, Polchies said. So much could have gone differently. Just the night before, he'd gone to bed at 8 p.m., tired after work, and not at 10 p.m., as he'd planned to the night the fire broke out.

"What if I'd gone to bed at 8 p.m.? What if I hadn't been walking the dog? What if Cindy hadn't wanted to watch a movie?" he asked.

The fire changed him, Polchies said. "I am so grateful. Grateful to my mother for watching over us. Grateful to Cindy for wanting to watch a movie. Grateful to my dog, because I walked him that night at just the right time."

And, he said, he is forever grateful for the incredible outpouring of generosity and love from the community.

When he has finished fixing up the home in Flanders where the couple is now living and life has once again regained some normalcy, Polchies has plans. He is imbued with a new sense of spirituality, and wants to help others. He wants to extend the same incredible kindness with which he's been graced.

"I want to pay it forward," Polchies said. "I've been given a second chance — and I don't want to waste a minute of it."

According to Suffolk County Police, responding officers were at the scene within a minute of the 10:38 p.m. 911 call.

Suffolk police detectives spoke with Riverhead town code enforcement who indicated they believe the apartments were legal but said they would investigate, police said.

Police said smoking was a potential cause of fire, "but there are multiple factors that are being investigated, all accidental in nature."

When asked about smoke detectors, Suffolk County Police Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer said they couldn't definitively say if there were any but at this point, "there is no indication there were any present or going off."

Riverhead Town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar told Patch that the home was a legal, owner-occupied, four-family residence. In recent months, code enforcement had visited the home eight times and called twice, trying to get the town's rental agreement renewed; once that rental agreement was renewed, there would have been a new inspection required, she said.

The owner was then cited in October with failure to renew the rental agreement, she said — adding that the agreement expired in 2020, during the pandemic.

The owner of the building could not immediately be reached for comment.

The home had great historical significance in Riverhead. According to Riverhead Town records, the three-story, cross-gable Victorian style home was built circa 1905 and featured turrets and Tuscan columns. Known as the Price Northridge House, the home was originally designed by William Sidney Jones for Augusta Price, a Brooklyn attorney.

A GoFundMe page, "Help the Rivera Family Rest In Peace," was created by Kristen Leonard of Riverhead to benefit Leonel Rivera, who has identified the members of his family who died, and to help get their bodies home to Guatemala, their final resting place.

Another GoFundMe, Help My Family Get Back Up On Their Feet, was created to lend support to the Starsiak family.

To help Polchies and Wilson get back on their feet, a Venmo account has been created @Cindy-Wilson-282.