Fire Chief: Saturday Blaze Was Accidental, Claims One Life

The fire that claimed the life of an elderly Fort Lee woman Saturday night has been determined to be accidental, according to Fort Lee’s fire chief, who also said fire officials believe there may have been a delay in reporting the fire to the police department or 911.

“The Bergen County Prosecutor’s office along with the Fort Lee Police arson investigator determined the fire to be accidental. They’re saying that the cause of the fire, or part of the cause, was a vehicle in the garage,” said Fort Lee Fire Chief Jeff Silver.

Silver also said he believes the fire in the two-story house at 290 McCloud Dr. had been burning for quite some time when firefighters arrived on scene.

“We believe based on the amount of fire that we saw when we arrived that for some reason it took somebody some time to get emergency services rolling,” he said. “When we arrived on scene, the back of the house was fully involved, that means from ground level or basement level all the way up to the roof. For some reason, the fire, wherever it started was able to travel through the building, whether there were windows open, and burn all the way through the roof. I don’t know how it got that way, but it was fully involved when we got there. We also believe part of it was a gas-fed fire.”

Killed in the fire was 94-year-old Rosa Morell, who lived in the house with her daughter Sonia Velasquez-Puentes, who Silver said is “in her 70s.”

Silver said firefighters initially tried to gain entry to the house through the front entrance, but that they were driven back repeatedly by very thick smoke and heavy heat and flames. Silver estimated the temperature at the entryway to be about 1,000 degrees. He said the firefighters knew there was a victim trapped inside a bedroom in the front of the house but that they couldn’t immediately get to her.

“We were given an area to look for the victim,” Silver said. “But due to obstacles inside that front entrance, it was not easy for our guys to get the hose in and where it had to go and again were driven back numerous times by the heat and smoke. The guys were getting beat up pretty badly. The heat was so high that it was impossible to make our way in there. And there were so many things going against us. And when [news reports] say it took two hours, yeah, it took two hours to make it safe for our guys to go in further. And that’s really the priority … we need to make sure our people go home every night.”

After making numerous attempts to get into where the victim was believed to be, “and knowing that we couldn’t do it because we knew the rest of the house was fully involved,” Silver said he “pulled all our firefighters out at that point, and we put up the ladder trucks, and we hit the fire with as much water as we could from above.”

“Once we were able to knock down the fire enough to go back in and try to extinguish the rest of the fire with hand lines, we were able to get to the victim at that point,” Silver said.

But it was too late. Firefighters found Morell dead lying on her back on the floor.

Silver said the alarm came in at 9:44 p.m., firefighters were dispatched at 9:45 p.m. and arrived on scene at 9:48 p.m. The fire was declared under control at 11:45 p.m., according to Silver.

“When I made the decision to pull them out of the house, it was based on everything going on, the amount of fire, the structure itself was in bad shape where we were fighting the fire. So you have to put the priorities in place,” Silver said. “It’s the fire department members first, victim second and property third. So it took us time to get there. We knew where she was. But that’s the way it worked out, and it’s unfortunate.”

All four Fort Lee fire companies fought the blaze with help from fire departments from Leonia, Cliffside Park, Ridgefield, Palisades Park, Englewood and Englewood Cliffs. Silver said some were working at the scene, while others covered Fort Lee’s firehouses in case there were other calls.

One Fort Lee firefighter was injured in the blaze, sustaining burns to his ears and face, Silver said.