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Edgewater police: Maintenance workers ignited apartment complex inferno, waited 15 minutes to call 911

Edgewater officials surround Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco at morning news conference as complex continues to smolder in background (CLIFFVIEW PILOT PHOTO)

Photo Credit: Courtesy Lawrence Bethke
Photo Credit: Courtesy Lawrence Bethke
Photo Credit: Courtesy Michael Russo
Photo Credit: Courtesy NYC Scanner
Photo Credit: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Damien Danis
Photo Credit: Courtesy Jim Luker
Photo Credit: Courtesy Lawrence Bethke
Photo Credit: Gary Chartoff
Photo Credit: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Senior Correspondent Richard Criscione
Photo Credit: Courtesy Michael Russo
Photo Credit: Courtesy Lawrence Bethke
Photo Credit: Courtesy Lawrence Bethke

PHOTO: Courtesy Michael Russo

PHOTO: Courtesy NYC Scanner

PHOTO ABOVE: Courtesy Carmen Fuentes
PHOTO TOP: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Damien Danis

PHOTO: Courtesy Jim Luker

UPDATE: Maintenance workers using a blow torch to fix a plumbing leak ignited the fire in a first-floor apartment at the southern side of the four-story main building of the Avalon at Edgewater apartment complex, then waited at least 15 minutes to call 911 after calling their supervisor and trying to extinguish it themselves, authorities said tonight.


“It was an accident,” Police Chief William Skidmore said. “It was a tragic accident….It was not a criminal act.”

The lightweight wood construction made from the Avalon at Edgewater complex a tinderbox once the blaze ignited, borough Fire Chief Thomas Jacobson said.

“If it was made out of concrete and cinder block, we wouldn’t have this sort of problem,” he said during a morning news conference (photo, above).

In the end, firefighters were forced to surround the main building, tamp peripheral flames and let what had been a roaring inferno burn itself out.

It destroyed 240 of the 408 units, which displaced 500 residents of the main building and a similar number from nearby homes.

CLIFFVIEW PILOT PHOTO

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SLIDESHOW/UPDATE: Citizens and officials, public servants and strangers, businesses and individuals all drew tight today around the more than 1,000 people displaced by a ravenous apartment complex fire in Edgewater last night. READ MORE….

HOW YOU CAN HELP: City Place in Edgewater has become the official collection point for donation and relief efforts for the hundreds of families burned from their homes in the Avalon fire last night. READ MORE….

A FIRE VICTIM WRITES: My son, Amir, called me while I was still at work at 5:30 from the YMCA after-school program at the Eleanor Gelber School across the street. He said families were coming in the school crying. He said he heard there was a fire at our home. READ MORE….

PHOTOS: Photographer Jack Dunn of Regional Fire Photos worked last night’s Edgewater fire, producing dozens of captivating shots — including one of his father, a firefighter, witnessing the destruction. READ MORE….

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Gov. Christie met with local officials and told displaced residents that state investigators will determine whether existing building codes were followed when the complex was built.

“The fact that there was no loss of life here is really a blessing,” Christie said.

The fire seemed troublesome from the start after being reported just after 4:20 p.m.

Firefighters told CLIFFVIEW PILOT they were worried because it quickly began moving horizontally.

As night fell, flames were roaring north through the Russell Avenue complex off River Road below the Palisades, sprinkling embers through the immediate area and threatening nearby homes on Undercliff Avenue just above.

“It’s traveling fast engulfing the north end of the back of the structure,” Robin Daghlian-Curasco of Ridgefield reported just before 10 p.m. “Embers are being carried by the wind like snow.

“Ladder crews are hosing down the homes across the narrow street. The school across the other street is now being used as a rehab/command post… Fire and EMS are doing an amazing job.”

Residents were moved to, among other locations, the Edgewater Community Center, after first being taken to the Eleanor Van Gelder School.

Many walked out on their own when alarms sounded, residents told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. Others were snatched up by firefighters.

The mushroom-cloud image from Ridgefield (COURTESY Gary Chartoff)

It instantly reminded many of a similar blaze that raged through the complex off River Road as it was being built in 2000 — and quickly promised to dwarf that one by comparison.

The previous fire, at what was called Avalon River Mews on the site of the former Alcoa aluminum plant, spread to several homes on Undercliff Avenue, destroying nine of them, along with several cars, while displacing nearly 40 people the night of Aug. 30, 2000.

Last night’s fire was officially declared under control around 11 a.m. It continued to smolder through the morning, sending white smoke past a group of officials — including the mayor, fire chief and Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco — who held a news conference in the Trader Joe’s parking lot.

Nearly 250 firefighters remained from companies that came last night from a host of municipalities throughout not only Bergen County but Hudson and Union counties and New York City.

Among them: Bogota, Cliffside Park, Englewood, Fairview, Fort Lee, Franklin Lakes, Hackensack, Hillsdale, Leonia, Little Ferry, Mahwah, Moonachie, Oakland, New Milford, Ramsey, Ridgefield, Rutherford, Teaneck, Tenafly, Woodcliff Lake and Wood-Ridge.

The NYFD also sent a battalion of fireboats.

PHOTO: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Senior Correspondent Richard Criscione

CLIFFVIEW PILOT PHOTO: Courtesy Michael Russo

PHOTO: Courtesy Lawrence Bethke

CLIFFVIEW PILOT PHOTO


 

 

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