The tenant and an owner of an East Forest Avenue home narrowly escaped a four-alarm blaze April 23 after they tried to remove a burning mattress from their basement.
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photo by denis niland
Firefighters from at least seven local departments quelled a 54 East Forest Ave. blaze April 23 that resulted in two firefighter injuries and the discovery of more illegal occupancies in the city.
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The two occupants escaped the midnight blaze with their lives and so did two firefighters who escaped the flames with minor injuries.
Although the cause of the fire was accidental, Englewood Fire Chief Robert Moran said firefighters discovered that the home was illegally converted to house more tenants in the two and a half story home and in a garage in the backyard.
The home was under foreclosure and the electricity was turned off, Moran said. One person was living in the home lit by candlelight and the owner of the home was living in a detached garage in the backyard. Both structures were illegally converted into rooms to house tenants.
The illegal occupancies coupled with the unattended burning candles that caused the blaze could have made the situation far worse.
"If you have a fire in your house, don’t try to pull a burning mattress out and try to put fire out yourself," Moran said.
"Call 9-1-1 because any delay in response, as in the case, can cause the fire to intensify and rapidly move throughout the building."
According to Moran, the two people in the home lit candles in the basement then walked up to the first floor of the home. Moments later the people smelled something burning, went back down to the basement and saw that the mattress had caught fire.
They then tried to pull the mattress through a hallway where it got caught, he said.
The fire quickly spread from the basement throughout the wood-frame home and when firefighters arrived flames were shooting out of the upper floor windows.
A home next door was damaged because of the intense heat and a fence also caught fire.
Both occupants escaped. One Englewood firefighter was being treated for a shoulder injury as of last week and a Fort Lee firefighter was treated for minor injuries at the scene.
"The rapid response of the firefighters and the aggressive attack limited the fire damage to the original building and saved the other neighboring exposures," Moran said.
Tenafly, Bergenfield, Leonia, Fort Lee, Teaneck, Englewood Cliffs, Palisade Park, Ridgefield Park, Bogota and the Bergen County Mask Service Unit assisted Englewood in the response.
