HILLSDALE, N.J.—The investigation is ongoing into a house fire at 8 Vincent St. on Dec. 16, though fire officials agree the blaze started in a second floor bathroom, where a space heater was operating.
Five residents reportedly were displaced in the afternoon blaze, at the start of the winter holiday season, and nobody was reported injured.
“It was something in the bathroom. I’m not sure it was the space heater. It could have been several things,” Hillsdale Fire Chief Tom Kelley told Pascack Press on Dec. 17.
Kelley said the call came in at 3:10 p.m. after residents smelled smoke and saw haze in the living room, and he was there within a minute.
Of interest, Kelley said, was water that had already begun pooling below, likely from a damaged water line.
Smoke issuing from the eaves and second floor windows quickly led to flames spreading from the second floor bathroom into the attic, from where they punched up through the roof, he said.
“It was quick. It was a fast one,” he said.
Kelley said his crew mounted an aggressive interior attack, bringing two hose lines up to battle the blaze.
He credited a fast and professional response from fire crews from Hillsdale, Woodcliff Lake, and Westwood, and the Hillsdale Volunteer Ambulance Service.
He referred investigation-related questions to Westwood Fire Marshal Darren Blankenbush, of the Fire Prevention Bureau, who did not immediately return a call seeking information.
The chief said the family could be displaced for some time, saying the building will be uninhabitable at least as long as it takes for the insurance investigation and repairs.
He said friends of his who were displaced in a pre-dawn Thanksgiving Day blaze at their home on Lincoln Avenue—a two-alarm emergency that broke out just after 2 a.m. and was contained to a bedroom—are now living in River Vale.
Kelley said he told the Vincent Street homeowner, “Your house can be fixed, your possessions can be replaced, but the important thing is nobody was hurt. As long as you guys weren’t hurt and my guys weren’t hurt, everything is all good.”
He added of Hillsdale’s response, “As a chief I could not have been happier.”
Kelley told Pascack Press that his crews practice interior firefighting techniques at the Bergen County Fire Academy’s live-burn building, which is free, and at Bergenfield Fire Training Center, where there is a fee.
According to Shippensburg University communication and journalism student Abby Lee, who was home visiting family when the blaze at her Vincent Street neighbors’ home occurred, the emergency was tackled quickly.
She was on the scene talking to the victims, neighbors, and a firefighter, and took pictures of the response.
Lee told Pascack Press on Dec. 17, “The homeowners said they smelled burning plastic and saw smoke in their living room, later to discover that the source of the fire was a small heater in the bathroom causing a fire to burn up the walls.”
She said residents told her smoke filled the second floor of the home.
Lee described the scene as firefighters tapped a hydrant to send water into the home to knock down the flames and save as much of the structure and the family’s possessions as possible.
“After a strong burning smell was given off at 3:10, large thick clouds of smoke rushing out the windows and vents of the house, filling the air, could been seen from blocks away. Police were quick to the scene to block off the roads,” Lee reported.
She said neighbors could do nothing but stand by and watch the firefighters do their job. She said from the initial call it didn’t take long for flames to be seen “blazing out the back” of the stricken home.
“There was a lot of fire damage from the second floor and a significant amount of water damage to the ground floor,” Lee said.
She said emergency crews left the scene at 4:50.
Mutual aid in the Thanksgiving fire was provided by firefighters from Park Ridge, River Vale, Westwood, and Woodcliff Lake.
