When HBO came to this N.Y. small town, disaster followed

ELLENVILLE, N.Y. —  Hollywood came to town, bringing bright lights, movie stars and a glint of glory.

In the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, Ellenville residents were thrilled when HBO began filming a Mark Ruffalo television series, “I Know This Much Is True,” in the village known in the region for its maximum-security state prison. A casting call for extras in nearby Poughkeepsie drew nearly 3,000. At Ellenville’s hospital, doctors and nurses doubled as background actors.

A Main Street landmark was spiffed up to depict a 1990s-era car dealership with gleaming props — Chevrolet Camaros and Corvettes — on loan from car buffs throughout the state. Patriotic flags fluttered in the May breeze.

But after a long day of filming, a small fire began kindling inside the dealership about 2½ hours after the last of HBO’s crew had left for the night.

“It happened so fast,” recalled George Budd, Ellenville’s assistant fire chief and the first firefighter on scene just before 1 a.m. “I can still see it to this day. I bent over to put my bunker pants on, I stood up … and every window in the place just blew out. Then it became a hell show.”

The May 9, 2019, blaze tore through the nearly 12,000-square-foot structure, burned for more than 12 hours and resulted in an estimated $15 million in property damage. No one was injured, but the disaster sparked finger-pointing, lawsuits and questions about accountability that still divide the small community in the Hudson River Valley.

Five and a half years later, many in Ellenville remain bitter over HBO’s alleged role in the fire and its aftermath. Small communities roll out the red carpet for filmmakers, but there’s not always a happy Hollywood ending.

Ulster County fire investigators wrote in a report that equipment used by HBO caused the electrical fire, which they said ignited after crew members left sound equipment batteries charging overnight in the car dealership showroom. However, HBO for years blamed others for the start of the fire, although it did reach several confidential settlements, according to a Times review of fire reports, court filings and more than two dozen interviews.

HBO has denied the allegations and said the damage was due to “the negligence and/or culpable conduct of a third party” over which they were not responsible. HBO blamed a faulty battery for causing the electrical fire. It sued the battery maker and settled the case earlier this year.

“HBO has been producing shows on location all around the globe for decades, always with the utmost care and respect for the local environment and community,” the company said in a statement. “It was no different for this series. The fire was an unforeseen accident, and it took time to investigate it thoroughly.”

Ellenville officials estimated the fire wiped out more than two dozen jobs in the village of nearly 4,200 people about 90 miles north of New York City.

Two families — whose nearby mobile homes were damaged by the heat and the water used by firefighters — say they are still waiting for HBO to acknowledge their plight and are seeking compensation for their alleged damages. They have remained in their unsafe structures, saying they have no place to go.

“When you buy a home, you have big plans to make things nice,” Pablo Ferrada Arias said one evening, as he stood outside his sage green and white trailer, its sides warped by the intense heat. “But they came to do the movie and destroyed everything.”

Ellenville Police Chief Phil Mattracion said of HBO: “They moved on. ‘Here today, gone tomorrow.’ They have no vested interest in the town.”

For five months, a location scout had traveled New York’s back roads, searching for a car lot with just the right look.

“I saw it covered in snow, in the golden hour light, in all its 1950’s atomic era glory,” Sara Furey wrote in an Instagram post about her February 2019 discovery of the car dealership.

“It was a beautiful old historic Midcentury Modern building,” said Barbara Hoff, an Ellenville native who owns the local train depot and a vintage clothing and jewelry store. “It had been a car dealership forever — a landmark when you drove into town.”

Built in 1970, with glass walls and a semicircular showroom, the building was home to a Collier Motor Car dealership until 2009. But then General Motors slid into bankruptcy and abandoned franchise agreements, including in Ellenville.

The property sat vacant for years, a reminder of hard times gripping America’s rural communities.

Eventually, it was turned into a used car lot. HBO paid the business owner, 613 Automotive Group, $107,000 so the network could use the dealership for the film shoot.

Eager for new industries, New York politicians have embraced generous cash rebates to attract filmmakers who can turn their cinematic lens on lush landscapes and quaint neighborhoods.

But there’s been a vigorous debate over New York’s decision to steer $700 million a year to production companies. An audit in December found that taxpayers didn’t get their money’s worth — the state collected only 31 cents in tax benefit for every dollar it spent on rebates. Supporters of the film incentives try not to rock the boat and note the benefits to workers.

“We don’t like the word ‘Hollywood’ because it creates this myth that doesn’t help people,” said Laurent Rejtö, founder of the Hudson Valley Film Commission. “Most of the people up here who work in the industry are blue-collar laborers.”

HBO’s production company, Calling Grace Productions, and the director of “I Know This Much Is True,” hired local crews and extras for the nearly $90-million production that spent six months in 2019 filming throughout the Hudson River Valley.

HBO received a $24 million state tax credit for the project, according to its New York tax certificate (the credits cover up to 40% of qualified costs).

Those incentives helped bring Wally Lamb’s 1998 bestselling book to life. Previous producers and screenwriters tried and failed to pare Lamb’s 928-page novel into a movie about the dark and difficult lives of identical twins.

Ruffalo rescued the project, signing on as executive producer and star. HBO has long viewed Ruffalo (known to superhero fans as “The Hulk”) as a marquee talent, and they agreed to make a six-part series. Ruffalo went on to win an Emmy Award in 2020 for his portrayal of both brothers: the hardened Dominick, who resents but also cherishes his softer twin, Thomas, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Ruffalo, during his acceptance speech, said the HBO series highlighted a larger question:

“How are we going to deal and honor and take care of each other and our most vulnerable people?” Ruffalo asked as he clutched his gold statuette. “We do that with love, we do that with compassion. … If we have privilege, we have to fight for those who are less fortunate.”

Sixteen months earlier, Ruffalo and crew members had wrapped their second day of filming at Ellenville’s dealership. Sound and location crew members were the last to leave, around 10 p.m.

After midnight, security guard Joseph Perrone sat alone in the parking lot in his Jeep Wrangler, listening to the radio while sipping coffee. HBO crew members told Perrone to prevent looky-loos from touching the props — 1990s-era Chevy muscle cars that ringed the dealership.

“What I heard was a ‘pop.’ I looked over my shoulder and seen an orange glow,” Perrone said in an interview. “From there it looked like fireballs flying from behind a desk and jumping onto a car. I don’t mean like sparks, I mean full-on chunks of a flare.”

Perrone called 911. Firefighters were alerted at 12:56 a.m. Budd, the assistant fire chief, arrived within three minutes.

Three wailing sirens rousted Jessica Rios Rodriguez from bed. Her mobile home lies just steps away from the former dealership building. She and her partner rushed their daughter to safety and alerted their neighbor, Ferrada.

Firefighters raced to strap a hose on a hydrant but were foiled. “The [expletive] hydrant won’t open down here,” bellowed one firefighter, according to a cellphone video.

Firefighters tried two other hydrants but encountered weak water pressure. Additional firefighters were summoned from two counties. Eventually tanker trucks rumbled to scoop water from a nearby pond. By this time, the fire had to spread to the mechanics’ shop in the back. There, dozens of 55-gallon drums were stored, several containing waste oil.

As the oil ignited, huge explosions shook the site.

“Flames went 100 feet in the air, and I’m probably underestimating that,” recalled Keith Hughes, a former Ulster County fire investigator. “It was such a massive blaze.”

HBO-leased vehicles, including two rigs to power the set and film equipment, were parked in the back. They, too, caught fire. Rios’ bedroom was less than 12 feet from one of the burning generator trucks.

Her partner, Daniel Perez, turned their garden hose on burning embers swirling around their home but a firefighter took it to try to quell the inferno next door.

News of the fire quickly spread. Two friends, who’d loaned their classic Camaros to the production, made a beeline to Ellenville that morning.

“We pulled up and the fire was still going,” said Kevin Leonard, who found his red Camaro IROC, which he’d first bought while in college, charred to a crisp. “And there’s some guy in a T-shirt just knocking down the building with an excavator. I was like: ‘What the hell?’”

At 1:47 p.m. — 13 hours after it started — the fire was fully extinguished.

Budd said he believes equipment brought in by HBO, including the generator truck, turned the fire into a fast-moving inferno.

“It was crazy, just crazy, how fast the fire went through that building,” he said.

Hughes and a fellow Ulster County fire investigator zeroed in on the sound mixer’s equipment cart left in a corner of the showroom as the possible “origin” of the blaze.

The cart had been loaded with sound electronics, battery charging stations, power strips, dozens of lithium ion batteries and coiled extension cords. It was parked a few feet from a pickup truck and a table with a space heater, coffee maker and Halloween decoration props, according to one investigator’s report.

Remains of 75 lithium ion batteries were found amid the rubble. There were other flammables, too: aerosol cans with tips blown off and two scorched gallon-sized cans that were presumed to contain paint thinner or some other solvent used by HBO crews to decorate the showroom, the report said.

Hughes believes an HBO crew member left batteries charging overnight in a receptacle plugged into a wall outlet.

HBO crew members have testified they only used power from the generator truck, not from the dealership building, but Hughes points to a sizzled cord to counter that.

“They left the cart unattended, plugged in, charging batteries overnight,” Hughes said in an interview, echoing deposition testimony he gave.

The material that sparked the blaze, fellow investigator David Thomas testified in a court deposition, was “batteries and charging equipment, plugged into several power strips, plugged into an extension cord [that] was wrapped up on a cart … plugged into the wall.”

The county investigators reported the fire’s cause as “an unspecified electrical event,” but in an interview Hughes said, “It’s HBO’s fault, 100%.”

HBO denies it was at fault.

The New York company blamed a Torrance-based lithium ion battery company, whose lawyers pursued a theory that the blaze could have been intentionally set, court depositions show. There was no evidence of arson, the investigators said.

Lawyer Wayne Lonstein, who has sued HBO on behalf of the families, suggested the fire may have been sparked by cigarettes Ruffalo was smoking for a scene several hours earlier, but HBO attorneys rejected the smoking conjecture, citing video of Ruffalo’s smoking scenes.

“The footage closest in time to when the fire occurred is still four and a half hours prior to the start of the fire,” HBO lawyer Steven Montgomery wrote in a court filing. The judge denied Lonstein’s efforts to target Ruffalo.

Security video from a nightclub across the highway showed the fire had burned undetected for at least eight minutes before Perrone discovered it, prompting an allegation by HBO’s fire investigator that Perrone may have been sleeping on the job.

“Dude, that’s what the fire inspector that HBO hired told me,” location manager Stephen Grivno wrote a fellow crew member in a text message viewed by The Times. “But I don’t honestly know if he was like starting a rumor or what. .. It seemed like [the private investigator] was hired by HBO to cast suspicion on everybody else.”

Perrone has denied the allegations.

“I’m nobody’s scapegoat,” Perrone said. “I did nothing wrong, but some jerk decided to point a finger of speculation at me. From Day One, the finger pointing started — trying to avoid responsibility for the fire.”

That summer, Perrone stopped getting security jobs.

The day after the fire, HBO’s insurance adjuster clashed with village officials over the preservation of evidence.

HBO’s adjuster, Crawford & Co., took Ellenville officials to task, saying they “observed individuals compromising the integrity of the fire scene… [including] a worker in an excavator destroying the particular area where the fire is believed to have originated by displacing debris,” according to Ellenville documents provided to The Times.

Ellenville officials countered that they hadn’t ordered heavy equipment but the building owner did, according to a witness statement included in an insurance company report.

Then-building inspector Brian Schug responded that village personnel made “every realistic effort” to protect the public and firefighters.

HBO’s “carelessness destroyed a Village landmark and left nearly 30 people unemployed,” he wrote in an email to Crawford & Co. and HBO’s insurance company, Allianz.

Disputes over who was responsible delayed cleanup of a huge mound of fire debris fouled with toxic waste.

“It’s a very hard thing for a small community to have a trauma like that,” said Steven L. Kelley, Ellenville Regional Hospital chief executive. “And there was this pile of rubble still sitting there for about a year — reminding us how bad [the fire] was.”

The debris pile — twisted metal, charred concrete, car frames and blown out oil tanks — was a suspected source of toxins. The landowner installed a chain-link fence around it. Initially, the site was preserved for inspection by insurance experts. But in late 2019, Ellenville officials cited the property owner, 613 Automotive, for failing to clean up the pile, which contained “oil, gasoline and asbestos” and other contaminants, according to the citation.

Local politicians didn’t help. A council meeting turned testy nine months after the fire when Lonstein and residents — including Rios and Ferrada — pleaded with village leaders to help resolve the potential health threat. That same month, contamination was still present on the site, according to a February 2020 New York spill report.

A state inspector was called when an oil sheen developed in standing water after a heavy rain.

Storm runoff drained down a shallow slope and into Rios’ backyard, the state report noted. It was possibly laced with toxic chemicals, including residue from the firefighting foam, which contains harmful chemicals known as PFAS (polyfluoroalkyl substances), the report said. After the fire, Rios said, her chickens died. So did the tree by their front door.

“Here you had a situation in which HBO turns its back on the owners of the property,” former Mayor Jeffrey Kaplan and an attorney for 613 Automotive said in defense of his client during the heated 2020 council meeting.

“The fire was devastating to Ellenville,” Rejtö, founder of the Hudson Valley Film Commission, said. “It created a lot of bickering and infighting between different people and the mayor — just the politics of it all.”

Rios’ mobile home with baby blue siding had been her American dream.

The 37-year-old Puerto Rico native worked two jobs, including as a teacher’s assistant, to save money to buy the trailer for $20,000 in 2016 with her partner. The fire’s intense heat melted and warped the siding, and caused structural damage. Asphalt shingles liquified, dripping tar stains down a back wall. Clothes, furniture and other possessions were ruined by the heavy smoke.

Water firefighters sprayed over Rios’ and Ferrada’s homes caused further structural damage, and mold now seeps through the ceilings and walls, according to a negligence lawsuit the families filed against HBO.

In Ferrada’s home, the ceiling sags, the walls buckle and floor vents are rusted. A portion of an exterior wall peeled away, and rooms tested positive for mold. He stretched thick plastic to seal off the worst bedroom, but the air is heavy, making it difficult to breathe inside.

Ferrada’s daughter, who was 7 when the fire struck, used to live with him part time but developed asthma. Now, she stays with her mom.

He has a range of health issues, including high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, problems with his esophagus and depression. Blood tests have shown high levels of metals in his system.

“I’m tired — very tired,” Ferrada, a 46-year-old Chile native, said. “I lost too much here: I lost money, lost time with my daughter… I lost everything.”

A cardiologist expressed concern for Ferrada’s health: “Simply put you need to get out of there,” Dr. Jack Wolfson wrote in an October report. “It is more than dangerous, it’s deadly. You are being poisoned.”

The former Ellenville building inspector, Schug, had issued a “do not enter” order for the dealership and homes. “They shouldn’t be there,” Schug said during the contentious 2020 council meeting, adding the homes were not “safe.”

The property owner, 613 Automotive, initiated eviction proceedings against the families after they stopped paying land rent after the fire because of the property damage and contaminants. The trailers (which the families own) are too old and damaged to be moved.

“We have no place to go,” Rios said.

Lonstein, a municipal judge and attorney whose family owns an office building south of the fire site, became involved soon after the fire when some of his employees complained of coughs and other ailments. He ordered environmental tests that showed the presence of asbestos, lead, barium and cadmium, among other toxins.

He became increasingly alarmed after seeing Ferrada’s young daughter play in the snow near the debris pile months after the fire. As he dug into the case, he became angry after learning that the families had received no assistance.

“It comes down to this: If you hurt people, you take care of them,” Lonstein said in an interview.

Trying to find a resolution more than a year after the fire, Lonstein reached out to then-state Sen. Jen Metzger, who champions environmental causes embraced by Ruffalo, who lives in a nearby county.

Six months after the fire, Ruffalo had testified in Congress about the need to force companies to pay for health issues stemming from the spread of PFAS chemicals.

Metzger traveled to Ellenville to meet with Ferrada and Rios in their blistered homes. The visit came a few days after Ruffalo won his Emmy for “I Know This Much Is True.”

Metzger had held a campaign fundraiser, headlined by Ruffalo, that month. He contributed $1,500, records show. She and her staff hoped they could enlist Ruffalo’s help in getting HBO’s attention.

“It’s a very bad situation,” Metzger wrote a few weeks later in email sent to an environmental activist who works with Ruffalo. Metzger’s message summarized her and a staff member’s visit to Ellenville.

“HBO, [alleged] perpetrators of the fire, left their mess for others to clean up,” Max Cordella, the staff member, wrote. The two families had young daughters and needed help, Cordella said, because “their trailers are still not in livable condition but the families have no options so [they] remain.”

Cordella this month confirmed the Ruffalo outreach efforts. Metzger’s staff first contacted HBO but network executives “stopped responding,” Cordella said. “We were trying to help and thought that we may be able to get [the families’ situation] on this sympathetic movie star’s radar.”

“Nothing happened,” Lonstein said.

In an interview, Metzger — who now is Ulster County Executive — expressed frustration at the ongoing plight of the families.

“The amount of money made off this film compared to the relative cost of doing the right thing is virtually meaningless to a company the size of HBO,” Metzger said. “People’s lives are at stake and that’s really all that matters.”

A representative for Ruffalo declined to comment. “We empathize with anyone impacted and hope the matter resolves soon,” HBO said in its statement.

Several others who lost classic cars and equipment trucks said they struggled for months — and years — for compensation.

“I never got reimbursed from HBO or Calling Grace,” said Rich Shakerley, who lost his silver Camaro. He instead filed a claim against his own insurance policy.

David Haddad, who owns a production equipment company, said he lost sleep for about a year amid his battle with HBO and its insurance company to cover the loss of his camera truck. “HBO and their insurance provider went out of their way to handle this poorly,” Haddad said.

Calling Grace and its insurance company blamed Torrance-based IDX System Technology, which manufactured some of the lithium ion batteries, alleging the batteries malfunctioned — an allegation that IDX has denied.

Calling Grace sued IDX in 2021, saying it sustained losses of $1.9 million and its insurance policies had paid others “in excess of $3.5 million for damages resulting from the fire.”

Earlier this year, HBO and its insurance companies settled claims with various parties, including the property owner, 613 Automotive Group.

HBO noted in its statement that the only remaining lawsuit is the one brought by the two families.

“All of this is a nightmare,” said Rios. “After the fire, people didn’t believe that we were living here — that we are still living here.”

In May 2022, Lonstein sued Ruffalo, HBO and 613 Automotive , on behalf of the families seeking at least $2 million in damages. He also demanded that HBO provide a trust fund to cover their medical expenses for their “increased risk of bodily injury due to this incident.”

HBO’s attorneys made settlement offers that were rejected by the families. The company is now seeking to dismiss the case, saying the “plaintiffs have offered no proof that HBO and Calling Grace were responsible for exposing them to toxins that caused them damage.”

A trial has been scheduled for early next year.

“They came here to film and everything was nice, but they didn’t think about the consequences,” Rios said in a recent interview. “We are the consequences. HBO doesn’t care, 613 Automotive doesn’t care, Mark Ruffalo doesn’t care, but this is about our health, our lives and our house. Somebody has to be responsible and that’s why we are still fighting.”