Camden Fire Department — Rubbish Fire at the Former Coriell Institute Building - December 4, 2011

This page and the other pages in this series are the successors to the series of web-page about the Camden Fire Department called Camden Fire Department: The Fires of the Summer of 2011. On this and other pages in the series you will find pictures and information regarding different events and aspects of the fire service in Camden, New Jersey.

On Saturday night, December 3, 2011 units of the Camden Fire Department were called out to extinguish a rubbish fire that had been set in the buildings formerly occupied by the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, on Davis Street at Copewood Street. This fire was knocked down in short order, but the miscreants who had set it came back on Su

day, December 4, and this blaze required considerably more effort to combat.  Multiple calls were received reporting the building on fire. Squad 7 arrived with fire showing in the rear. Squad 7 laid in and went into operation with a 1-3/4“ hand line. Battalion Chief Ed Glassman used Ladder Company 2 and Engine Company 10 to assist on the assignment.

The site had been the home of the Camden Municipal Hospital for Contagious Diseases, whose last director was Dr. Lewis Coriell. At some point after 1956 the hospital was closed and razed. The property was subdivided, Decatur Street was extended from Pershing Street to Davis Street, and a series of two story apartments were erected on the north side of Decatur Street. Dr. Coriell erected a research laboratory on the south side of Decatur Street, and operated as the Institute for Medical Research and as the South Jersey Medical Research Foundation. In the 1980s the facility was renamed the Coriell Institute for Medical Research and moved to new quarters on Haddon Avenue and Washington Street. The laboratory building and other structures remained in use into the early 2000s, but subsequently became vacant, and were vandalized. Prior to the incidents of December 3 and December 4, a small fire was dealt with in June by the Camden Fire Department.

I arrived on sight and began taking pictures at 7:43 P.M., shortly after the blaze had been placed under control. The fire was in a part of the complex quite some distance from any overhead street lighting and it was very dark. CFD personnel were operating with handheld lights during the time that I observed operations. The photos below are presented in the order in which they were taken, and in some cases two versions of the same shot are presented… what I saw, or didn't see, as it was quite dark; and a “lightened up” version via Photoshop so you can see what was going on and what the conditions were.

The units involved were Battalion Chief Ed Glassman; Squad 7 (Captain Warren Everett, Firefighters Michael Mercado, Danny Gonzalez, Gerry Medina); Ladder 2 (Captain Ed Stratton, Firefighters Gabe Angemi, Johnnie Broadwater, Darien Gans); and Engine 10 (Captain Brian Irving, Firefighters Dominic Barret, Tyrone Baker, Jay Snyder).

As with the web page covering other Camden Fire Department events, if you can identify anyone that I've missed, please comment at the bottom of the page. (I'm terrible at names and faces).