|
'WORST IN YEARS': FIRE TESTS VOLUNTEERS
The Community Life
February 28, 1996
By Jerry Jastra
WESTWOOD - Firefighters here battled through
the night last week against a powerful blaze that destroyed one Ash Street
house and damaged another. Five borough volunteers were slightly injured
on Sunday February 18th, when they slipped on ice created at the scene,
but all three occupants of the destroyed house escaped unharmed, according
to Fire Department spokesman Kevin Brennan.
Linda Vogel, an Ash Street neighbor, saw the
destroyed house's garage burning fiercely and called 9-1-1 on her cellular
phone at 2:40 a.m. - as she ran to the house to rouse her imperiled
neighbors. With the flames from the garage heating the surrounding area,
Vogel stood just near the front door and yelled out to John and Paula
Russo, who own the destroyed house, and to their tenant upstairs, Brennan
said.
The Russos, who had fallen asleep in the
living room, just behind the front door, were awakened immediately by
Vogel's screams. John, who smelled no smoke in his house, opened his front
door and saw his garage blazing, Brennan said.
John and Linda, without shoes, ran out into
the approximately 20-degree weather. The husband immediately ran around
the fire to the back to rouse his tenant, Marlin Pearson, whose smoke
detector had already wakened him, and who had already fled, said Brennan.
He added that smoke and heat from the fierce garage fire had apparently
avoided the Russos' quarters, which also had smoke detectors.
Police were on the scene in about a minute of
Vogel's call and the approximately five Westwood firefighters who happened
to be at the firehouse (this informal duty crew is a common practice
there, Brennan said) were on their way in an engine immediately, arriving
at the scene within four minutes.
With a borough ladder truck behind them, and
Emerson, Hillsdale and Township of Washington volunteer firefighters on
the way to help, the Westwood volunteers- informed that all occupants were
safely out - prepared to attack the wild blaze with water.
"Within six minutes, fire was coming out of
every window," Brennan said. The fire, whose heat prohibited volunteers
from entering the house, also destroyed the Russo's two vehicles - which
were parked in the driveway outside the garage - and melted siding on the
near wall of a neighboring house (not Vogel's). Westwood's engine crew
immediately posted a team to cool down the neighboring house and keep the
fierce blaze from spreading there.
Westwood's 53 volunteers fought from the
front, while crews from Township of Washington and Hillsdale trucks, which
couldn't park on the dead-end street and were deployed on Beech Street,
pulled their hose lines through back yards to fight the fire from the
rear, Brennan said.
"We had a firefighter going down probably
every two minutes" because of the ice, Brennan said, which was made
exceptionally treacherous right at the engine, whose relief valve under
the vehicle must dump out excess water from the hydrant.
Five Westwood volunteers were injured from
falling on the ice, with one being transported to Pascack Valley Hospital,
where he was treated and soon released, Brennan said.
Meanwhile, the fire just wouldn't go out. The
100-plus firefighters from three towns were "lobbing water" on various
parts of the blaze and would "knock it down" in sections for a while,
Brennan said, only to see it spring up again with its original ferocity.
Normally, firefighters must create holes in a
burning house's roof to allow gas and superheated air to escape, but here
"There was no need for a vent; it (the fire) was through the roof,"
Brennan said.
Then there was the incredible leap the garage
fire took throughout the house proper within minutes.
Those conditions suggested to fire officials
that the blaze was "fed by gas," Brennan said., and a priority became
shutting off the gas valve in the house, which, again, was un-enterable
because of the intense blaze itself.
"PS was called for gas," Brennan said,
referring to the Public Service Electric and Gas company. But the
responding utility workers found that Ash Street's outside gas shut off
valve had been paved over, and was now covered with snow, and the night's
new ice - and had the Westwood ladder truck, with stabilizing pontoons
extended and deployed parked right on top of it, Brennan said.
PSE&G's electric division, meanwhile, had
already been summoned by the Westwood Fire Department, because the blaze
had severed power lines at the house, allowing them to fall toward their
poles across the street, where they hung hazardously.
As they fought the blaze, the volunteers also
began to fight the cold and the ice condition. The "worst in years," the
fire brought out the "ultimate of cooperation" among other departments and
groups, Brennan said.
The Westwood Fire Department called out the
town's Department of Public Works to apply salt to the ice at the scene,
after which the workers also helped firefighters pack hoses and do other
chores. The Fire Department called the emergency number of State Line Fire
Supply in Park Ridge, which delivered 50 pairs of new gloves to the scene.
The Ladies' Auxiliaries of the Westwood and
Hillsdale fire departments brought coffee and doughnuts to the scene, and
the American Red Cross responded later in the morning to arrange shelter
for the destroyed house's occupants, Brennan said. The River Vale Fire
Department stayed in Westwood's Center Avenue firehouse to cover the
borough for any new calls during the emergency.
Also, the Arson Squad of the Bergen County
Prosecutor's Office responded to the scene, which Brennan said is a
standard procedure in major fires. No information was immediately
available from the Prosecutor's Office, which didn't return phone calls on
the incident by press time.
Finally, after about two hours, the fire was
under control, with only pockets of flames left un-extinguished, Brennan
said.
"When we finally get in, we find the whole
floor was gone (in the front room of the destroyed house)," Brennan said,
pointing out the risk there would have been to firefighters if a
search-and-rescue operation had been needed.
After the main fires were out, firefighters
had to cool down items that could have ignited a blaze again, and had to
do it carefully, so arson inspectors could trace the path of the fire. And
then, after about seven hours on the scene, the Westwood volunteers packed
up their own equipment and gear - much of it soaked-through and frozen -
to take back to the firehouse, where they spent another two hours setting
out the frozen items to thaw out and mounting fresh hoses and tools.
|
