Categories: News, Schenectady County

FONDA — A fixture in the village and a family’s livelihood for 45 years was destroyed Tuesday when a car being worked on inside Mancini Motors caught fire.

“The good they’ve done for this town through all the years — it’s time that we’ve done good for them,” said Casey Dingman, a longtime friend of the Mancini family, as firefighters used ladder trucks to douse hot spots where the auto repair shop on Midway Alley, off Main Street, had stood a few hours before.

The fire started shortly before 3:15 p.m. after the car’s fuel line leaked gasoline and “flashed over,” said Stan Mitchell, chief of the Mohawk Fire Department.

“The heat got to a point where anything that was combustible would catch on fire,” he explained.

Shop mechanics tried using a fire extinguisher, “but it was too much,” he said.

As a result, “one of them, I believe, has some flash burns on him,” he said, adding that the injuries were not bad enough to warrant a hospital visit. “I think they sent him home.”

Flames were shooting out of all three garage bays when crews arrived, he said. Mitchell estimated that 50 to 60 firefighters from 12 to 15 departments in Montgomery and Fulton counties responded.

Three mechanics from the auto repair shop had already escaped safely; two residents of an upstairs apartment also got out uninjured, he said. No one else was inside when the fire started.

The apartment tenants were Al Mancini, who Dingman said opened the auto shop in 1972, and his wife. The shop’s operations had been passed down to Tom Mancini Sr., Al’s son.

The family gathered on the other side of Main Street, watching crews sweep up debris from the scene and speaking with a Red Cross representative.

“They’ve been like a second family to me,” said Dingman, 30, who has been friends with Sabina Mancini — Tom Mancini Sr.’s daughter — since kindergarten. “I’ve shared Christmases with them, and birthdays with them, highs with them — and this is definitely a low for them.”

The Fonda woman said the Mancinis have been good to their customers over the years.

“They’ve let them charge and charge and charge, and not come looking for it, not come knocking on their doors. Just let them pay for it as they could,” she said. “And now they’ve got nothing — so it’s time for the community to come out for these people.”

Residents of some nearby apartments were evacuated during the fire, which crews fought for more than two hours, Mitchell said. They were allowed to return to their homes after the fire was contained about 5:30 p.m.

The blaze spread quickly because the shop, once home to a glove mill, was originally a series of connected barns, the fire chief said. The building is a total loss.

“In essence it was one big, wide-open building, so it was very easy for the fire to travel,” he said.

There were a few oil tanks outside the shop, and they went undamaged, he said. “I believe they’ve flamed off.”

There were no firefighters injured in the blaze. The day’s intense heat presented an additional challenge, increasing the likelihood of dehydration, he said. First responders were supplied with bottled water throughout the effort.