Fire breaks out at Southampton house that had been target of home invasion

Firefighters extinguished a blaze in Southampton where detectives had responded to a home invasion two weeks ago and confiscated about 1,000 pounds of marijuana, town police said.

Four East End fire departments responded Tuesday evening to the blaze at the West Neck Road home, Southampton Town police said in a news release. Just before 1 a.m. on Sept. 17, police said they responded to the same home after a call reporting a "home-invasion burglary."

"At this time, it is premature to indicate the two incidents are related and the investigation is ongoing," police said. The department did not indicate whether criminality was suspected in the fire.

When asked about the pair of incidents, a neighbor on West Neck Road who declined to provide their name to a Newsday reporter outside the home — which remained behind yellow fire tape Thursday evening — said they "don’t believe in coincidences." The neighbor said no one was at the house at the time of the fire, or any previous day since the burglary-turned-drug bust.

Stephen Hartigan, who owns the home that burned, told Newsday in a phone interview that he was not aware of the extent of the fire damage, and did not have any information regarding the police activity. Hartigan has been out of the country on vacation and said he was "trying to get away from it and not think about it until I get back." The home was not his primary residence, he said.

The sole person in the house when officers arrived at the burglary call suffered "a laceration to his head," police said in a Sept. 18  release. He was transported to a hospital for treatment of injuries not considered life-threatening.

Detectives who responded to the burglary determined that the home "was not a random criminal target" as they spotted a "large and illegal quantity of marijuana" in plain view, the department said.

"A search warrant was executed at the residence, and a large quantity of approximately 1,000 pounds of marijuana was seized," police said. "At the time of the seizure, the marijuana had been previously packaged for sale and distribution."

Southampton police requested assistance from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office East End Drug Task Force and investigators from District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office, the release said.

Fire departments from Bridgehampton, Hampton Bays and North Sea, assisted the Southampton Fire Department in battling the blaze, police said. Southampton Town Fire Marshals were called to aid a follow-up investigation.