text: FIREBALL ON THE SKYLINE – MONSTER BLAZE STUNS B'KLYN
  A raging inferno that ripped through a historic Brooklyn warehouse complex yesterday was so intense that it melted nearby trucks down to their wheels and left shell-shocked 9/11 survivors fleeing for their lives.
  "It was like Sept. 11 – everyone started running, saying, 'Get out! Get out! Run!' " said a shaken Yidel Perlstein, whose Budget truck-rental business was across the street from the inferno at the former Greenpoint Terminal Market. Several of his vehicles were reduced to huge puddles of molten metal.
  The roaring blaze erupted around 5:30 a.m. at one abandoned building and quickly spread to at least six more, sending huge plumes of black, acrid smoke visible from New Jersey into the air and thousands of stunned New Yorkers into the streets to gape at the blaze.
  Fire officials immediately called the fire suspicious because of its intensity and how quickly it spread.
  One witness told The Post that soon after the fire began in the first vacant building, he saw a man on the roof of one next door pouring flammable motor oil into an elevator shaft.
  "He was just putting oil everywhere. I said, 'Hey, what are you doing?' And he started running down the catwalk," said Sean Vegezzi, 16, who had rushed to the site with a few pals to snap pictures after hearing about the blaze on the radio.
  Vegezzi added that moments earlier, he also had seen the man stuffing sticks and brush into a drainage pipe that led down the side of the building.
  Vegezzi described the "weird" character as middle-aged and slim with graying hair and wearing a beige T-shirt and khakis.
  Vegezzi said he reported what he saw to the cops.
  He said he later overheard a man identified as the buildings' owner telling cops that there were surveillance tapes of the structures that they could review and adding, "You'd better catch this guy."
  The horrific 10-alarm blaze brought 350 firefighters – including scores from Manhattan and Staten Island – to the scene. Fourteen Bravest suffered minor injuries, officials said.
  Witnesses said the intense flames also caused several trucks parked on the street to explode as falling debris rained from the building, smashing cars.
  "It was burning real hot," said Frank Otero, 32, a trucker who works nearby. "I couldn't open my eyes. I said, 'I've got to get out.' "
  Fire marshals had yet to enter the smoldering site by evening because of the ongoing flames.
  The blaze gained the infamous distinction of being the largest in the city since Sept. 11, 2001.
  Other than 9/11, the last fire of such a magnitude was at Brooklyn's St. George Hotel in August 1995, officials said.
  Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said gas was being stored in tanks 1,000 feet away from the former terminal site, so the fire could have been even more disastrous.
  "There's no telling how extensive the danger would have been if it had reached those gas tanks," Scoppetta said.
  All seven buildings suffered extensive damage and will be demolished, said Chief of Department Peter Hayden.
  A grim-faced Mayor Bloomberg toured the area around noon.
  The building where the fire erupted – part of a complex where the famed Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was built – was full of bales of clothing and boxes of blank checks, locals said.
  The complex had been slated for demolition as part of a controversial waterfront rezoning plan that would leave pricey residential towers, trendy stores and a park in its wake.
  Scoppetta identified the owner as Joshua Guttman. Law-enforcement sources said Guttman bought the building five years ago for $25 million.
  The developer last year inked a deal to sell it for a whopping $420 million, but the funding fell through. He then decided to hold onto the property, and is caught up in a legal battle involving the would-be buyer, the sources said.
  One of Guttman's previous properties was involved in a suspicious blaze in 2004 at another abandoned warehouse in DUMBO slated to be demolished for pricey development. Officials yesterday said the case was never solved.