STRUCTURE FIRE WITH ENTRAPMENT

Date & Time: Monday, February 25, 2008 – 11:33 p.m.

Location: 91 Crescent Avenue, Ewing Township, N.J.

Details: At 11:31 p.m. Mercer County Central dispatched the Pennington Road Fire Co. (Station 32), Ladder Tower 31 from Prospect Heights Fire Co. and Engine 33 from West Trenton Fire Co. on Box 32-10 for a possible structure fire at 91 Crescent Avenue. As additional 911 calls came in reporting that an elderly woman was trapped inside the burning house, Mercer County Central upgraded the assignment to a full first alarm and at 11:33 p.m. redispatched all three Ewing fire companies for full station responses. Also dispatched at that time for rapid intervention team duties was Lawrence Road’s Rescue 22. Firefighters arrived within minutes to find heavy fire showing from the rear of the one-story dwelling. Ewing Township police were already on scene and Police Officers Matthew Wallace, Michael Flynn and Thomas Kownacky and Sgts. Karl Bartkowski and Joseph Maglione had already rescued the trapped woman with the assistance of a neighbor, Todd Roundtree. They had located the 79-year-old handicapped woman in her bedroom and carried her and her wheelchair through the smoke-filled house out to safety. The woman was taken by ambulance to a Trenton hospital to be examined as a precaution. The officers also had used several dry chemical extinguishers to knock down some of the fire they found in the home’s kitchen. The blaze, which investigators later determined had been caused by another resident who left French fries cooking on the stove top, gutted the kitchen and extended into the attic before firefighters got the upper hand. The fire was declared under at 12:06 a.m. Rescue 22, which responded at 11:37 p.m. and arrived at 11:43 p.m., stood by as the RIT until being released at 12:21 a.m. Rescue 22 was then back in quarters by 12:27 a.m. Apparatus that operated on the scene included: Telesquirt 32, Engine 32, Ladder Tower 31, Engine 31-1, Squirt 31, Engine 33, Ladder Tower 33 and Rescue 22.

Responding LRFC Personnel

Rescue 22

Officer: Assistant Chief John Britton	Driver: Ff. Shaun Dlabik
Crew: Capt. Edward Kitchen	Crew: Lt. Richard Laird III
Crew: Ff. Keith Kent	Crew: Ff. Charles Commini Jr.
Crew: Ff. Ryan Dlabik

Car 22-1

Deputy Chief John Fleming

All photos copyright (c) 2008 by Michael Ratcliffe