Investigation Report on Fatal Noyac Fire Will Not Be Made Public

The Southampton Town fire marshal’s office will not, in the foreseeable future, release the results of its investigation into the August 3 fire at a Noyac home that resulted in the deaths of two sisters from Maryland, a town official said this week.

The fire marshals have concluded their investigation into the fire and issued a report on their findings, but that report cannot be released publicly because of the ongoing judicial proceedings pending against the home’s owners, the Southampton Town attorney’s office said this week in denying a Freedom of Information request submitted by The Press, seeking to view the report.

Ryan Murphy, the town’s emergency management coordinator, likewise said he cannot divulge what the report concluded, beyond the already disclosed findings by investigators that the fire originated near an outdoor kitchen and grilling area that had been built without permits, was never inspected for compliance with building or safety codes, and had electrical wiring that failed to meet code requirements and posed a distinct fire risk.

Murphy said that while the investigation is, for the most part, concluded, the conclusions drawn by such investigations do not always result in a single specific known cause of the fire.

The National Fire Protection Agency, which sets standards and guidance for investigations, groups the cause of fires into one of several general categories, including electrical, incendiary, accidental or undetermined. He said he could not disclose into which of the categories the investigators have placed the Noyac fire.

The hillside home on Spring Lane in Noyac had three smoke detectors that were inoperable and was missing a smoke detector that should have been in a hallway outside the second-floor bedroom where the sisters were sleeping. There was also a power outlet to the outdoor kitchen that was installed without a required protective casing that created a serious fire hazard, investigators found.

The owners of the home, Peter and Pamela Miller, have been charged with 29 violations of state building and safety codes, many of which are misdemeanors that carry potential jail time.

In Southampton Town Justice Court on Friday, September 30, the Millers’ attorney, Edward Burke Jr., agreed with Assistant Southampton Town Attorney Sean Cambridge and Justice Karen Sartain that many of the photos taken by investigators at the scene, especially those showing the victims, should never be made public. Sartain issued a protective order against the photos being released — and those photos had been specifically excluded in The Press’s FOIL request.

The Millers have yet to appear in court in person. They have entered not guilty pleas through Burke.

Two attorneys representing the family of the young girls who were killed have been at the two court hearings on the case thus far but declined to comment after Friday’s proceedings. They will return to court on November 18.

The two girls — Jillian Wiener, 21, and Lindsay Wiener, 19 — were asleep in one of two second-floor bedrooms of the house their family had rented from the Millers for a week in early August when the fire broke out late at night. Their brother, Zachary, who was sleeping in the other second-floor bedroom, was able to escape out a window.

Their parents told police that they were awoken by the sound of breaking glass and escaped. Lewis Wiener, their father, tried to reenter the house when he discovered the girls had not gotten out but was turned back by searing heat. His wife, and the girls’ mother, Alisa, also escaped the fire.

Firefighters who arrived shortly afterward were able to reach the girls’ room by ladder and carry the unconscious victims out, but they could not be revived.

The charges against the homeowners include violations for the illegal electrical wiring in the outdoor kitchen, for each of the inoperable smoke detectors and for the missing one in the second-floor hallway, failure to have a required rental permit, a number of safety code violations related to the swimming pool and gates on the property, and the lack of an updated certificate of occupancy. The Millers could face up to six months in jail for each of the misdemeanor charges.

Officials have said that if the Millers had gotten an updated CO and a town rental permit, the safety issues would have been remedied and the tragedy potentially averted.

“We’ve issued these charges based on all of these conditions that we observed, and we hope the property owners are held accountable for their actions,” Murphy said.