The Essex County’s Arson Task Force is investigating what has been termed a suspicious fire at the Essex County Hospital Center on Wednesday [April 11, 2012] that may have been arson.

Cedar Grove police and fire departments responded to the fire at the abandoned center, located at 204 Grove Ave., officials said.

Firefighters from the Cedar Grove fire department put out the fire in an old gymnasium on the property with help from the Verona fire department shortly after fire officials were contacted.

“It is a disaster in there so we went in with caution,” Cedar Grove Second Deputy Chief John Bannon, said. “We just wanted to make sure if anyone was in there they got out.”

There are no suspects and no arrests have been made, spokesperson Katherine Carter of the Essex County Prosecutors Office said.

“It was put out quickly,” Bannon said.” There was just a few obstacles because it is old and vancant.”

The old gynasium didn’t have much inside that could set on fire, except for some old padding on the walls and part of the floor Bannon said. The fire was contained to the building, Bannon said, but smoke from the fire was a concern.

Verona’s Rope Intervention Truck was there for support in case a firefighter had to be rescued, since it is an old building with structural issues.

North Caldwell, Fairfield and Montclair were on call for any Cedar Grove problems while the fire department was at the old hospital.

Related Posts:

• Arson ruled as cause of hospital center fire

BY ANDREW SEGEDIN
STAFF WRITER
Verona-Cedar Grove Times

The April 11 fire at the old Essex County Hospital Center was indeed an act of arson, according to Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Arson Task Force Director Jeff Cartwright.

No arrests have been made and the prosecutor’s office has yet to identify any suspects, Cartwright said.

Fire personnel from both Verona and Cedar Grove responded to smoke emanating from a vacant building on the premises of the abandoned hospital center shortly before 5 p.m. on April 11. Within 20 minutes, the flames were knocked down, according to Cedar Grove Fire Department Deputy Chief John Bannon.

The blaze, which was categorized as a “debris fire,” took place in a corner of the center’s gymnasium where cushions along the wall were aflame, said Bannon. Structural damage was limited to portions of the gymnasium’s hardwood floor. In a Friday, April 13 interview with the Times, Bannon described the nature of the fire as “suspicious.”

While Cedar Grove fire crews were at the scene, engines from Montclair, North Caldwell and Fairfield covered the town.

Related Posts:

• Possible Arson Reported at Old Essex County Hospital

BY MARIA KARIDIS
MANAGING EDITOR
Verona-Cedar Grove Times

A discarded cigarette has been identified as the cause of a Thursday evening brush fire in the Verona section of Hilltop Reservation, said Essex County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Kevin Lynch.

Four teenaged boys between the ages of 15 and 18 – three from Fairfield and one from Caldwell – were together in the Hilltop when one of the boys tossed the lit cigarette, Lynch said. The boys called Verona police at 6:24 p.m. to report the incident and they stayed on the scene until police arrived, Lynch said.

The fire broke out about a quarter mile north of the Highland at Hilltop housing complex, located at 220 White Rock Rd., said Verona Police Sgt. Paul Watkins.

Verona firefighters had the flames extinguished at 6:45 p.m., Watkins said. They turned the investigation over to the Essex County Sheriff’s Department because the Hilltop is county-owned.

Sheriff’s investigators determined that the fire was accidental and as such, charges were not filed against any of the boys, Lynch said.

“If they didn’t stay, that fire could’ve gotten out of hand,” he added.

There were no injuries and the damage to the Hilltop did not appear to be severe, Lynch said.

Members of Verona’s Hilltop Conservancy had yet to visit the area to assess the impact, if any, on their recent efforts to rejuvenate the Hilltop’s plant life, said Conservancy secretary Gail Moxley on Friday afternoon.

BY MARIA KARIDIS
MANAGING EDITOR
Verona-Cedar Grove Times

How many fires has Sanford “Sandy” Weinberg fought over the course of his long tenure with the Verona Fire Department?

“Oh, I don’t know – no way. Many fires. Many, many,” Weinberg responded.

Currently in his 50th year of service with the department (not counting four years on the auxiliary squad), Weinberg was honored by fellow firefighters and local officials at a dinner/party last month.

“Yep, over 50 years of service and I’m only 35 years old,” the 72-year-old Verona resident joked. “I enjoy it. I enjoy servicing the community.”

The biggest fire Weinberg worked on was at the Claremont Diner on Sept. 8, 1976 at 3 a.m., when he was fire chief. He deftly grabbed the incident report from among his collection of files while speaking to the Times.

After spending three days on the scene, Verona firefighters determined the cause of the fire was a frayed wire on a coffeemaker. The diner suffered $1.3 million in property damage, but “thank goodness” there were no injuries, Weinberg said.

Current fire chief Pat McEvoy was a new firefighter in 1976, and when he recalled the Claremont Diner incident, he also recalled his experience under then-Chief Weinberg – “a go-getter” who was and is “very respected by the department,” he said.

“As a chief, he was always keeping us on the cutting edge, thinking of what’s the next thing coming up that’d be good for the town of Verona, good for the men,” McEvoy said.

Having hung up his flame retardant clothing and pickax seven years ago, Weinberg currently oversees administrative duties as secretary for Engine Co. 1.

“Once I reached 65 years of age, I felt it was not in my best interest or the best interest of the fire department for me to do interior firefighting,” Weinberg said.

He is also in his 12th year as secretary for the New Jersey Firemen’s Association, a “very busy” post to which he has been re-elected every year, he said.

And, in all of his free time, the married father of four children and five grandchildren runs his own business, Backstop-USA, which sells automatic reverse brake systems for emergency vehicles throughout the country. Weinberg founded the business in 1985 and runs it out of his Balston Drive home.

“It’s unusual for someone to stay 50 years in service,” McEvoy said. “Especially in today’s economy, to stay on that long and be so dedicated. He’s selfless. Anything you ask him to do, he’s very quick to step up to the plate.”

Firefighting has always been Weinberg’s passion.

He moved from Montclair to Verona at age 14, joined the fire department’s auxiliary squad at 17, and as soon as he met the minimum age requirement – 21 – Weinberg joined the regular fire department. He took a two-year leave of absence while he served in the U.S. Army as a combat advisor in Vietnam (1963-1965), returning to Verona to serve as lieutenant and captain of Engine Co. 1, before being elected assistant chief in 1973 and then chief in 1975.

And Weinberg has no intention of leaving anytime soon, he said.

“My wife and I have been talking about retirement, but I like what I’m doing with the state office and helping out the Verona Fire Department in any way that I can. So right now, I really don’t want to leave it.”

He only hopes that Verona’s youth will be as inspired to lend a helping hand he was, and still is. At 16 years of age, one can join Verona’s auxiliary fire squad as an introduction to fire service; auxiliary members are not permitted to actually fight any fires.

“They’re the future of our department,” Weinberg said of local youngsters, lauding the department’s current group of “younger guys” who have recently signed on. “And by having a volunteer fire department, we save the taxpayers a fortune of money.”

What’s the hardest part of firefighting? “I had nothing that was a struggle,” Weinberg definitively responded. “Once you have your heart set on what you’re doing, and if you enjoy it … there’s a lot of training that the men have to go through – constant training – but as long as you keep up with everything, I really have no negatives that I can think of.”

At the party in his honor, Assemblywoman BettyLou DeCroce (R-Essex, Morris, Passaic) personally presented a certificate of appreciation to Weinberg. He also received certificates and proclamations from the Verona Township Council, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-NJ), Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-NJ), the NJ State Firemen’s Association, Verona Fire Co. 1, Fire Co. 2, the Verona Rescue Squad, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

“I actually don’t know what I’m going to do with all this stuff,” Weinberg said, as he thumbed through his stack of awards. “It was very, very nice.

“It’s a great organization,” Weinberg continued, of the Verona Fire Department. “The members are all great; the officers are all great. It’s one big family and we all work together very nicely.”

Among his top accomplishments in Verona, Weinberg said, was his push to secure construction of the fire department’s training center on Ozone Avenue. McEvoy agreed, lauding Weinberg for his “instrumental role” in getting the facility, and explaining that without it, local firefighters would have to travel over an hour away to the state’s fire academy in order to brush up on their skills.

“Sandy’s all about the fire department,” McEvoy added. “He’s 100 percent fire.”

Email: karidis@northjersey.com

Assemblyman Robert Schroeder sponsors bill requiring emblem on buildings where solar panels are attached to the roof to protect firefighters from electrocution.

By Ann Piccirillo

With an increasing number of buildings investing in alternative energy, emergency responders are often unable to immediately identify structures that have installed solar panels on their roofs — putting them at risk of electrocution in the event of a fire.

In an effort to protect firefighters against the danger of electrocution posed by solar panels, Assemblyman Robert Schroeder (R-Woodcliff Lake), a volunteer firefighter in the Township of Washington since 1980 who has twice served as fire chief, has sponsored a bill that would require buildings to clearly label with an exterior emblem whether they have solar panels.

The bipartisan bill was approved by the Assembly Homeland Security and State Preparedness Committee, on which Schroeder serves.

“New Jersey is one of the fastest-growing markets for solar energy and trails only California in terms of installations, but solar panels pose an unintended threat to firefighters,” Schroeder said last week.

“Safe firefighting requires knowledge and awareness of the situation. This bill will let emergency responders know at a glance when there’s a threat of electrocution because the building is actively harnessing power from the sun.”

The safety measure was recommended in a National Fire Protection Association report focusing on structural firefighting in buildings that utilize solar panels to generate thermal and/or electrical energy.

According to the report, buildings with solar power systems “can present a variety of significant hazards” for firefighters.

In addition, the bill requires that all existing and newly constructed buildings with solar panels be equipped with an external shut-off switch.

“We can have clean reliable energy without making fires any more dangerous than they already are,” said Schroeder.

“As a firefighter, I understand the value of knowing immediately what potential dangers await in a burning building I might have to enter.”

“Simply putting a warning sign on the outside of a building could very well save the life of one of our brave first responders,” Schroeder said.

No one injured in basement fire on Durrell Street this afternoon.

By Craig McCarthy
Verona Patch

No injuries were reported at a house fire that broke out in Verona at 5:08 p.m., fire officials said Monday.

Firefighters were called to Durrell Street near the Hilltop Reservation on a report of a basement fire.

It is unclear if anyone was home at the time of the fire, but fire officials confirmed there were no injuries reported. A fire official, who spoke of behalf of Fire Chief Pat McEvoy, said the fire began in the basement and was confined in the basement.

The fire official said the blaze was contained within 10 minutes with help from the Cedar Grove Fire Dept. The fire occurred in a two-story house on Durrell Street, a residential street near a wooded area.

“It was a good stop,” the fire official said. Thefire did not spread and no neighbors were evacuated.

Three fire engines and one ladder truck from Verona Fire Department responded the call at 5:08 p.m. while the Verona Police blocked of the street at either side.

Cedar Grove Fire Dept. assisted with one engine and Verona Rescue Squad was there as well.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

BY ANDREW SEGEDIN
STAFF WRITER
Verona-Cedar Grove Times

Fire and rescue vehicles rushed to Highfield Lane in Cedar Grove shortly after 7:45 p.m. Thursday evening as flames rose in the rear of a residence.

Essex County, Little Falls, North Caldwell and Verona units were also called to the scene.

Police, fire and rescue personnel remained on site for more than two hours investigating the incident and surveying the home. Afterward, it was determined that the two-alarm blaze was caused accidentally by a cigarette discarded on the rear porch of the residence, according to Cedar Grove Fire Chief Michael Tower.

Tower said that the residents were alerted to the flames by a neighbor and that the fire was extinguished shortly after 8 p.m. While the fire extended into the kitchen area, the rest of the home was limited to smoke and water damage. There were no injuries as a result to the fire, Tower said.

While Cedar Grove personnel focused their attention on Highfield Lane, Tower said that Montclair and Verona each had a vehicle on call to service the rest of the municipality.

There’s been another rollover accident on the eastern end of Bloomfield Avenue. This one occurred Friday morning at about 2:15 a.m.

The car was traveling east on Bloomfield and veered off the roadway into the rocks just past Mountain Auto Body, in between Pompton and Sunset avenues. The car rolled over onto its side and came to rest between a utility pole and sign. Of the three people in the car, two needed to be taken to hospitals for their injuries; the third person did not need to go to the hospital.

The Verona Police, Verona Rescue Squad, VRS Heavy Rescue unit and Verona Fire Department were all on the scene. The Heavy Rescue team used a chain saw to remove a tree that was wedged under the vehicle so that the tow truck operator could remove the car, and VFD Engine 11 deployed a hose for protection against a fuel leak or sparks.

It was the third serious accident on this section of Bloomfield Avenue in the last two weeks and the second overturned vehicle here.

If you were listening to the fire horn in Verona on Sunday night, you may have heard an unusual combination: 2-2-2-2. It’s a pattern of emergency horns that tells Verona’s volunteer firefighters that their help is needed in a neighboring town and they need to report to our two stations for their assignments.

The VFD’s members were among the scores from across western Essex County who were called to Essex Fells for a massive house fire. This kind of multi-department response is coordinated thru the Essex County Fire Mutual Aid System.

The VFD was at the Devon Road home for about five hours, assisting Essex Fells as a Rapid Intervention Team, which means that they were assigned the task of rescuing any missing or injured firefighters. They also worked on extinguishing hot spots, and they returned on Monday morning with the ladder truck to assist reaching some small, hard to reach pockets of fire that were re-igniting.

For many people in Verona, it is the chief annoyance of living in Verona: The horn. You know the one I mean. Oh sure, it’s quaint the way it blows at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., to mark the beginning and end of a day (yes, a day of an earlier era).

But confess. At least once in the time you have lived here, especially if you were in the center of town when the horn sounded, you have asked why we still need an air horn to tell the all-volunteer Verona Fire Department and the Rescue Squad that there is an emergency. And, in the case of the Fire Department, to tell them precisely where to respond. But when landlines fail under the weight of snow-covered phone lines and cell phones can be silenced by power outages, it’s nice to know that the horn still works.

“In emergency response, one of the key issues is communication,” says Jeff Hayes, Verona’s director of technology and a volunteer fire fighter. “If people don’t know there is trouble, how can they go help?”

Here’s how they know. Several decades ago, the town mapped out an emergency alert system based on Verona’s grid-like map. Each corner of town was assigned a number. That’s the first number you hear when the horn blows. One blast means the fire is roughly between F.N. Brown school and Bloomfield Avenue. Two puts the fire near Forest Avenue School, three is Brookdale and four is Laning. Five and six are for areas outside the center grid, respectively the north end of Grove Avenue and the streets east of Pompton Avenue, including the Claridge condo buildings and Pilgrim shopping plaza.

The next two numbers tell you the number of intersections east or west from Lakeside Avenue. The final number counts blocks north or south of Bloomfield Avenue. The whole thing is naturally amplified by Verona’s hills and valley topography. So when the horn blew 4-3-3 on Sunday afternoon, Verona’s volunteer firefighters knew to respond to Newman Avenue at the intersection of Hamilton Road, where a downed power line was turning the road surface into molten asphalt.

Verona is not the only town that uses an air horn system to marshal its first responders, and it hasn’t turned its back on newer technology. Every Fire Department and Rescue Squad volunteer is issued a two-way radio, and information is also sent out by text message. This summer, the town installed a second air horn system to alert people at Verona Pool and the Community Center fields that there is a threat of lightning.

And though Verona’s teens might not want to believe it, text messaging is not as fast or efficient as that belligerent horn. There are generally only three or four numbers to blast out with the horn and SMS messaging–as cell texts are called in the communications trade–are at the mercy of the carrier’s other traffic. “Text messages sometimes come five minutes after the horn,” says Hayes.

Normally, the horn isn’t used after 10 p.m. But sleep has been hard to come by for the Fire Department and Rescue Squad since the snow started falling, and the horn has been sounded well into the dark. Hayes, and Verona’s other volunteers, wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I can be mowing the lawn and still hear the horn,” says Hayes. “I can’t say that of a cell phone. And if I ever need help, the horn reassures me that it is on the way.”