81-Year-Old Woodbridge Woman Dies in Thursday Afternoon Fire

A fatal fire occurred in a School Street home on April 25.

Update: Police Captain Roy Hoppock told My Central Jersey that the victim in Thursday's fire was 81-year-old Betty Simon. A Woodbridge woman died on Thursday afternoon after a fire broke out in her School Street home, My Central Jersey reported. Firefighters arrived on scene around 12:30 p.m. and had the fire under control at about 3:30 p.m., Office of Emergency Management director Patrick Kenny told My Central Jersey. At the time of the fire, the woman’s husband and a handyman were able to escape from the first level of the home. My Central Jersey also reported that Mayor John McCormac was on scene of the fire and said the couple was always seen together in town. The home that caught fire on School Street is attached to a Sweet Shop that…

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Hurricane Sandy

STORM: Snow Brings New Outages For Some

Others have had no power at all for 10 days

Gov. Christie told a gathering on Long Beach Island on Wednesday that the coming Nor'easter and anticipated snowfall would likely cause "a setback" in the work underway for full power restoration. Boy, he wasn't kidding. JCP&L, on its website, is acknowledging that the nor'easter has created new outages, often for customers who were hit with outages in the height of Sandy's destructive path, had power restored and are now in the cold darkness yet again. "Late Wednesday, heavy, wet snow and high winds from the nor'easter resulted in approximately 120,000 additional power outages in the Jersey Central Power & Light service territory," says the JCP&L website. The company serves 13 counties in New Jersey, including Monmouth and Ocean. There …

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Seven Weeks Later, Another Fire Lights Up Woodbridge Village

It wasn't a huge blaze, but apartment dwellers in the Avenel complex couldn't believe it was happening again.

Less than two months after a devastating fire destroyed several apartment buildings and made several hundred victims homeless, fire engines were again at Woodbridge Village apartments in Avenel late Friday afternoon. This time, the fire was confined to the kitchen in one of the apartments, while several other habitations nearby sustained smoke damage, said Woodbridge Police Lieut. Greg Conklin. There were no injuries, but the number of fire engines, police cars, and emergency vehicles on scene bespoke the urgency that a fire in that complex holds for EMS workers in Woodbridge after the devastation wrought by the July 10 blaze. Dozens of residents were out on the grounds, worriedly watching a ladder truck move into place to fight the fire…

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As Many as 400 Occupants Lived in 50 Woodbridge Village Apartments

And investigators of last month's fire still can't find most of them.

The cause of the fire that reduced two apartment buildings at Woodbridge Village to smoldering ruins still hasn't pinpointed. Part of the problem, said investigators, is that they still can't find and interview many of the residents living in the 52 apartments lost in the fire. Official estimates initially were that about 100 people were made homeless by the fire. Since then, though, those estimates have soared to as many as 400 people living in 50 apartments. Two of the apartments in the village, located in the Avenel section of Woodbridge, were vacant. "A lot of them just took off," said Avenel Fire Official Cory Spillar of the hundreds of people who had lived in the affected apartments. Many of the residents in Woodbridge Village were …

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After the Fire: Tearing Down Woodbridge Village

Displaced residents scrounged through the rubble to salvage what they could of their belongings from the July 10 fire that left 100 homeless.

They escaped with little more than the shirts on their backs when two buildings at Avenel's Woodbridge Village apartments went up in flames earlier this month. Yesterday former residents of the burnt out shells were waiting as an enormous backhoe gingerly knocked down what's left of the buildings torched by the flames. One hundred residents in 52 apartments were made homeless in the July 10 fire. Refugees from the flames waited while recognizeable pieces of their lives poked out from the wreck as the demotion slowly progressed. They retrieved what they could; for many, that meant immigration papers and passports, documents that would be very difficult to replace and necessary for them to live and work. Woodbridge-area businesses and …

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How to Help Woodbridge Village Victims

Do you want to get involved? Here's how to help.

More than 100 people were left homeless in yesterday's conflagration at Woodbridge Village in Avenel. The fire destroyed 50 apartments, and had victims running from the buildings with only the clothes on their backs. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured - but that still means that many Woodbridge families lost all of their personal belongings in the blaze. "The Township is coordinating the collection of clothing for the victims and displaced residents of the fire at the Woodbridge Village – Colonia Garden Apartments," said township spokesman John Hagerty. There are several drop off points for used clothing, diapers, and other items, such as the Evergreen Center on Inman Avenue in Colonia and the Woodbridge Community Center on Main …

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Joshua J. Burnett

9:48 pm on Friday, July 13, 2012

Martha - any donations are being accepted at town hall or the Community Center (600 Main Street). Organizers of the effort have been stressing that they only really need monetary and gift card donations at this point, however (though I can't imagine they would turn down toiletries if you wish to send them.)   more ›

Dozens Homeless in Adjoining Perth Amboy Pre-Dawn Blazes [VIDEO]

A fire that started at one home on Cortlandt Street quickly spread to other buildings, leaving dozens homeless in the pre-dawn hours.

A pre-dawn fire that started in one home in Perth Amboy quickly spread to several others, causing building collapses and leaving dozens of people homeless. The five-alarm inferno tore through the 600 block of Cortlandt Street, plowing through one home and spreading to nearby homes. Perth Amboy firefighters were there en masse, but even their ladders and fire hoses did little against the raging blaze. When the building on the corner of Huntington and Cortlandt caught fire, for at least a half hour, it was a hopeless task to try to extinguish the blaze. Firefighters tried, but backed off as flames burst through every window of the upper floor, then through the roof, and finally the conflagration caused the rear of the building to collapse. …

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soo sad

7:10 am on Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Whatever41 what made you think arson and how do you know where to position fire trucks?   more ›

Arson Investigators Search Ruins of Fire That Cost Firefighter His Life

Lifelong Hopelawn firefighter Bruce Turcotte died of a heart attack at a blaze at a Menlo Park Terrace house. The body of an unidentified man was found in the basement.

Officials from the Middlesex County Arson Unit of the Prosecutor's Office are investigating a fire in the Menlo Park Terrace section of Woodbridge today that claimed the lives of a firefighter and a man in the home. Former Hopelawn Fire Company Chief Bruce Turcotte, 58, was found collapsed inside the cab of a fire truck he had driven to the scene of the fire at 33 Jefferson Street. Turcotte was heading a rapid intervention unit to be first on the scene to prepare in fighting the blaze, according to a statement released by the current chief, Michael Walsh. Turcotte was seen stretching fire hoses from the pumper in front of the house so firefighters could move into place to fight the fire around 1:30 pm, Walsh said. A short time later, …

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What's That Smoke From? A Shed Fire Takes Off During Pizza Run Race

A black-smoke fire in the neighborhood of yesterday's Main St. race drew almost as much attention as the race itself.

Hundreds of people showed up to race in yesterday's Pizza Run Race on Main St. But the spectators cheering them on noticed something that diverted their attention from the rhythmic plodding of sneakers on pavement: it was furls of black smoke just a few streets over from the epicenter of the race event. It wasn't anything so massive - the shed behind a house on E. Smith St. had gone up in flames.  "I was sure it was a huge house fire," said one of the bystanders of the acrid smoke that hung in the air. A shed behind a two-story house had quickly caught fire and created plumes of dark smoke easily seen from Main St. Onlookers speculated that it must've been gasoline that caused the shed to go up so quickly and burn so hot. "The fire is …

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Fast-moving Fire That Destroyed a Colonia Home is Under Investigation

Officials aren't sure what caused the fire that obliterated a Morningside Drive home

A late afternoon fire that raced through a Morningside Road home in Colonia was so severe, it caused what one firefighter called a "backdraft" that blasted out the opposite side of the house from where the fire started. Fire officials were unsure what started the fire Sunday at the brick facaded, two-story home, but whatever it was, the powerful, fast-moving blaze moved quickly through the attic area of the house. "The structure isn't safe. There's a lot of water in there," said Colonia Fire Commissioner James Souza, Jr. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, and there were no reported injuries, he said. The family was at home at the time of the fire, said Chris Chernosky, a friend and neighbor who lives across the street. …

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