 May 2005 Ambulance hits
pole , stops traffic and power SAYREVILLE: Two firefighters suffered minor injuries yesterday extinguishing a blaze that began when an ambulance struck a utility pole on Washington Road near the Parlin Post Office, setting off an electrical fire that destroyed three vehicles. Detective Ken Kelly of the borough police department said the incident began about 1:25 p.m. when a South Amboy First Aid Squad ambulance and its three member crew were returning to their building. ‘‘Either the driver lost control or there was a mechanical failure,’’ Kelly said. ‘‘The ambulance struck a curb, then struck the telephone pole, shearing it off. There were three transformers on the pole and, along with the wires, came down and caught fire.’’ The fire engulfed three vehicles that belonged to employees at the Parlin Post Office, he said. Washington Road, a busy thoroughfare linking Sayreville, South Amboy and Old Bridge, was closed all afternoon and remained closed late in the day as crews from Jersey Central Power & Light Co., who cut electricity to the wires and transformers, were trying to clean up and repair the damage to the area’s electrical system. Several businesses in the area lost power. ‘‘There have been and are heavy traffic delays,’’ Kelly said. ‘‘We don’t know when the road will reopen at this point.’’ Soldering
ignites house fire in Edison EDISON: A man was rescued from a house at 364 Old Post Road yesterday afternoon after the pipe he was soldering ignited a fire in a first-floor bathroom that destroyed the home, authorities said. No one was reported seriously injured, but police officer Timothy Lombardo was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation. Lombardo was on patrol when he saw smoke coming from the house at 2:50 p.m. When he entered the house, he found the man attempting to put the fire out with rags. No one else was home. Lombardo brought the man outside and asked him to wait while he checked the house. But the man, who did not speak English well, may not have understood. While Lombardo went back into the burning house to see if anyone was still inside, Edison Police Chief Edward Costello, who was in the area, arrived at the scene. Costello ran into the house, where he found the man who had just been rescued attempting to put out the fire with a garden hose. Costello and Lombardo escorted the man outside.
Good Samaritan
catches baby tossed from roof of burning home Alan Reid was walking on Commercial Avenue in New Brunswick yesterday when he smelled smoke. Angel Natal and his friend Keith Burton were driving to a tire shop when they saw the smoke. All three men rushed to the fire at 71 Comstock St., where three men and a woman were trapped on a front-porch roof, unable to escape. One man clutched his baby as the fire spread. ‘‘I yelled to them, throw the baby down, gently throw the baby,’’ Reid said, recalling how the father dropped his 18-month-old son into Reid’s arms from the one story porch roof. At the same time, Natal and Burton, both volunteer Franklin Township firefighters, grabbed a ladder off a construction truck parked nearby. They propped the ladder against the burning house, allowing the trapped residents to escape moments before flames engulfed the front of the home. When New Brunswick Deputy Fire Chief Robert Rawls arrived minutes later, ‘‘the whole front of the house was just in heavy fire,’’ he said. More than 30 firefighters from New Brunswick, East Brunswick, Franklin and Edison responded to the fire that Burton called in when he and Natal first saw the flames shortly before 11 a.m. The fire was extinguished by 11:45 a.m. Nobody was injured, but one pet dog died in the fire that burned the first floor and much of the second floor of the 2 1 /2 story building. A second dog and a cat were saved. Eight tenants in the house were given temporary shelter by the Red Cross. Bulmaro Solais said he was sleeping in a second-floor apartment where he lived with his wife, Maria Guadeloupe, their son, Alexandro, and Solais’ brother, Hector Solais. The brothers had come home at 6 a.m. from a night shift in a South Brunswick warehouse. Bulmaro Solais was awakened by his brother screaming about the fire that was blocking the stairway. The brothers and Bulmaro Solais’ wife climbed out the front window of the house with their son and another unidentified man. They were standing on the porch roof when Reid ran up yelling for the child. Barely able to see through the thick smoke, Solias said, he tossed his son to Reid. Then Natal heard there might still be somebody in the basement. A lieutenant with 11 years experience in Franklin Township’s Community Fire Department, Natal went to the front door and made his way to a living room, where he found a cat and dog, and brought them out, he said. Smoke kept him from reaching the basement. New Brunswick firefighters later searched the house and determined nobody was inside, authorities said. A woman also escaped from a first-floor apartment, Bulmaro Solias said. The woman’s husband and their two children had left the house before the fire started. Fire officials were investigating the cause of the fire late yesterday.
Photo: Vic Yapello/The Star-Ledger - Firefighters douse the Comstock Street home, where four people were rescued from a porch roof by two passing firefighters from out of town.
Men enter burning
house, save pets: South River volunteer firemen rescue 5 of the owner’s
7 animals Brendan Collick ran to the burning South River house yesterday, opened the front door to look for people inside when the thick smoke quickly forced him back. Then he heard sounds that made him go inside. What Collick heard were the barks and meows of dogs and cats caught in the house at 44 Roosevelt St. ‘‘I’m an animal lover,’’ said the 22-year old Collick, who owns two cats and a dog. He brought out three cats from the burning house yesterday, and helped rescue a fourth pet. Collick and Thomas Alfrey, both borough sanitation workers and both volunteer firefighters, were working on a borough garbage truck when they saw the fire at 10:06 a.m. They reported the blaze and rushed to the house. No people were home at the time, but there were five cats and two dogs inside, said borough Fire Marshal Stan Ruzicki. Alfrey, 29, the driver, assisted in bringing out the dogs, including one that bit a borough electrical utility worker. One cat died in the house and another succumbed to fire-related injuries, borough officials said. The two dogs survived. The bitten worker, Robert Kotera, was taken to an area hospital, where he was treated and later released, officials said. Ruzicki said the fire started in the basement and about 20 firefighters from the borough and East Brunswick kept the flames from spreading to the other floors of the two-story home. When Collick, who has been a South River firefighter for four years, opened the front door, one cat came out from under a shelf and ran to his arms, he said. He rushed to the back of the house, where he and Alfrey found another cat hiding just inside the backdoor and took the animal out. The two men returned to the building, crawling on the floor, but were forced out by the smoke. As Collick came out, he a saw a third cat by a rear window sill. From outside, Collick smashed the window, reached in and grabbed the animal, then started to breathe into its mouth to revive the feline that was having trouble breathing, he said. Collick recovered another cat from the stairway to the basement. Alfrey was working with firefighters to get the two dogs out of the house. The injured animals were taken to the Sayrebrook Veterinary Hospital in Sayreville, borough officials said. The owner of the home, who arrived after firefighters extinguished the blaze, did not want to be interviewed.
Photo: Matt Rainey/The Star-Ledger - Fire personnel survey the scene at 44 Roosevelt St. in South River yesterday where a house fire that started in the basement claimed the lives of two of the owner’s cats.
Photo: Steve Behar/For The Star-Ledger - Emergency responders resuscitate a cat that was overcome by smoke in a South River house fire. It was revived after being given oxygen, as was another cat. Both were taken to the Sayrebrook Veterinary Hospital in Sayreville.
Chemical plant fire forces road closure
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