WHY WE FIGHT

Gee, it’s great to be home. From AP, Aug. 14:

Explosion destroys gas station
MINEOLA, N.Y. — A massive fire destroyed a gas station, an auto repair shop and a dozen customers’ cars on Tuesday.

As the flames raged and thick black smoke blew over the neighborhood along a busy main roadway, nearby houses and businesses were temporarily evacuated, but no one was hurt, firefighters said. The fire was contained to the service station area, but several cars parked in a lot behind it were damaged.

The flames didn’t reach the station’s underground fuel tanks because employees were quick to hit a fuel line cutoff switch, firefighters said, and just a little bit of gasoline in the station’s aboveground pumps and hoses caught fire.

The fire, at a Getty station, started at about 9:30 a.m. It took eight fire departments about an hour to bring it under control.

Nassau County fire investigators were using heavy machinery to remove debris from the burned area to try to figure out the cause of the blaze. They suspected the fire began in a storage room, but they couldn’t reach it right away because its roof had been ravaged by flames and a 2-ton air conditioning unit had fallen into it.

The owner of the business, George Monoyos, said he was “devastated” to have lost everything.

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