Fire at 2930 Kansas Road
At 5:55 PM on a house fire was reported at 2930 Kansas Road in the Fairview section of Camden. Responding companies arrived in the middle of a brief but severe thunderstorm. A single-alarm fire heavily damaged the home, displacing a family of four.
See also: The Fires of the Summer of 2011
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Camden fire forces four from house
Camden Courier-Post —
By Joe Cooney
A single-alarm fire heavily damaged a home here in the 2900 block of Kansas Road Thursday evening, displacing a family of four. The fire broke out about 6 p.m. in a second-floor bedroom. A Camden fire marshal on the scene declined to talk to a reporter, but the owner of the home said a firefighter told him a mattress caught fire.
Al Fatale, who rented the three-bedroom house to a woman with three children, said even though the fire was contained to the bedroom, the entire house would have to be gutted. “It’s as if the whole house went up,” Fatale said, as he waited to speak with the fire marshal. “A fireman told me a mattress burned and there was a big circle (of fire) around the mattress,” Fatale said, noting that the house was inspected “not more than a month ago for smoke detectors.” “Thank God for inspections, and thank God nobody got hurt. But I’ve got to gut the whole thing. There’s water throughout the house and the smell from the smoke is terrible.”
Camy Trinidad, executive director of the Camden County Red Cross, said the woman and her children will be provided assistance. “We’re making sure the family has a place to stay through the weekend,” Trinidad said. “So we’ll be putting them up for four nights and on Monday we’ll re-evaluate the woman’s situation.”
The city has seen a rash of fires over the last month, three of them large blazes in abandoned warehouses. A two-alarm fire Tuesday gutted the former Clement Coverall Co., a structure at 6th Street and Carl Miller Boulevard. And on Saturday a fire destroyed a Fairview Street convenience store and the apartment above it and heavily damaged two other homes. Officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have declared a June 19th blaze at a former chemical plant along Federal Street as being deliberately set. Causes for the other fires have not been determined.