HYDE PARK – A major fire broke out on New Year’s Day at the Millennium Kingdom Family Church compound on Mansion Drive, drawing emergency response from at least 10 different fire departments, including one from Ulster County. Dutchess County 911 first dispatched the Hyde Park Fire Department to 30 Mansion Drive around 8:12 a.m. Thursday, after receiving reports of a fire at the historic property.
The structures, dating back to the early 1900s when they were part of the Archibald Rogers Estate, sit far back on the sixty-plus-acre, snow-covered parcel, making access difficult for the first-arriving first responders.
An initial water-supply issue caused a temporary delay in getting the rapidly spreading fire under control. The fire traveled from the six-thousand-square-foot building to the adjoining three-story, fifty-thousand-square-foot building that contains the church and a series of rooms on different levels of the building.
The fire ran through the walls and other hidden spaces, creating a dangerous environment for firefighters who were battling flames on the top floor while fire was burning below them on the second floor.
Shortly after 11 a.m., the command staff ordered the firefighters out of the buildings and switched to a defensive-style of firefighting by applying water from aerial trucks and ground lines onto the buildings from outside.
Dutchess County Executive Sue Serino, who lives in a house that was originally part of the Rogers Estate, visited the fireground to get an update from the first responders. “The response from the emergency personnel is tremendous,” she told Mid-Hudson News. “The professional and volunteer firefighters, with the assistance of the Dutchess County Office of Emergency Management are battling the wind and dangerous conditions to get the fire extinguished and they deserve thanks for their efforts.”
The Hyde Park Fire Department was assisted at the two-alarm fire by career firefighters from the Arlington, Fairview, and Poughkeepsie Fire Departments and volunteers from the Roosevelt, Rhinebeck, Pleasant Valley, East Fishkill, New Hamburg, and New Hackensack Fire Departments and the Highland Fire Department from Ulster County.
The Dutchess County Emergency Management staff, including the Fire Investigation Division, were at the blaze along with members of the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office UAV (drone) Unit, Hyde Park Police, and Northern Dutchess Paramedics.
Officials expected the fire to burn for most of the day and into the evening on Thursday.
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