By LAURIE STUART
NARROWSBURG, NY — On Friday afternoon, June 23, a fire tore through the headquarters of Lang Industries. By Monday morning, owner Ned Lang was working at a temporary desk in a trailer on a small hill above the twisted metal hulk of the former Lenape Arena, 2.5 miles south of the hamlet of Narrowsburg. He was on the phone with one of his workers who was picking up supplies and planning the rebuild.
“I lost 40 years of tools, equipment and trucks,” he said, as he surveyed the damage that had, in a matter of minutes, devoured the steel and wood building.
“I was in Carbondale when my wife called me,” he said. “And I could hear the explosions; it sounded like Beirut. But thank God, no one was killed. Everyone got out.”
A worker who had just returned from a truck run let himself into a locked area to put gas into a lawn mower. Unfortunately, he entered the closed space with a lit cigarette. The worker received second degree burns on his forearms and is expected to make a full recovery, Lang said.
“I’ve got trucks already ordered from New Holland and we’ll be up and running as soon as we can,” Lang said, adding that it was lucky that his solid waste facility, located just beyond the arena building, was not damaged. “The paint isn’t even blistered,” he said.
Firefighters from Lava and Narrowsburg were alerted for a structure fire with a victim burned shortly after 12 noon. Upon arrival, Narrowsburg Fire Department Fire Chief David Casey requested initial mutual aid with a full response from Yulan Fire Department and Lake Huntington Fire Company. The victim was treated by EMS from Tusten Volunteer Ambulance Service, Highland Ambulance Service and Mobilemedic EMS and transported to…
Photograph: By Roy Pataro | Nora Thompson Dean 
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