Burn victims “have lost everything but their lives,” says a friend who set up a GoFundMe page to seek help

There’s an old saying that childhood friendships last forever. That proved true this week in Riverhead when a local woman helped a friend she met at Riverhead Middle School whose childhood home on Newton Avenue was destroyed by fire Monday night.

Randy Majewski and his father, Joe, were able to escape their burning home Monday night with nothing but the clothes on their backs as a fast-spreading fire broke out in the kitchen and destroyed the back of the one-story ranch house where Joe Majewski had lived since the mid-1980s.

“I was in my room and I heard strange loud popping noises,” Randy said in a phone interview Wednesday night. He said he was heating up French fries in the microwave and when he went to the kitchen to check on the noise, he said, “I could feel the heat.”

Flames were burning around the stove and range hood, he said. His first thought was to reach for a fire extinguisher, but “I saw that the area around the stove was already too damaged.”

He ran down the hall to his father’s bedroom and found the door locked. “I started banging on the door,” Randy recalled. The hall filled with thick, black smoke, he said. His father opened the bedroom door and immediately closed it again, the son said. That may have saved his life.

Randy said he crawled down the hallway and found his way to the front door. Police had already arrived at the house.

Riverhead police said in an evening news release that officers found the home “in flames and heavy smoke.” Officers attempted to enter the home but were forced to turn back due to heavy smoke and fire. A resident of the home was found near the front door and reported that two other adults were trapped inside, police said. Officers helped a woman through a front window and then went to the back of the home, where they located a man in a back bedroom and pulled him to safety through a window, according to the police report.

The residents of the house were treated on site, police said.

MORE COVERAGE: Riverhead police rescue three people from a burning house on Newton Avenue on Monday evening

They survived, but Joe Majewski, 76, and Randy, 43, two self-employed roofers, lost everything else in the fire.

“All our clothes, everything in all the rooms is just gone,” Randy said.

“There’s nothing left.”

Enter Jeanne Smith, who has known Randy since middle school. She set up a fundraising page for Randy and Joe on the GoFundMe website and asked the community for help.

Smith described Randy as a “friendly soul who likes to lend a hand.” He is a local and a former student of Riverhead High School, she noted.

“They have lost EVERYTHING except their lives,” she wrote.

Randy said he lives at his mother’s house and his father lives with Randy’s sister. They need help to meet basic needs, Randy said.

“We really appreciate the outpouring of support and concern,” Randy said. “I didn’t think so many people would care so much.”