Camden Fire Department - Federal Street & River Avenue - Action Porta Systems building

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.

Shortly after 7:00 PM on October 26, several calls were received regarding a fire in the abandoned building on the Northeast corner of Federal Street and River Avenue. For many years this building had been utilized by the Standard Oil Company. During the 1970s and 1980s a portable toilet rental company, Action Porta Systems, occupied the site. This firm abandoned the property in the late 1980s, and the building has been unoccupied by any legitimate tenant ever since. The building has been occupied on occasion by vagrants and other criminal tresspassers, and this was not the first fire that had occurred at this property.

Fire dispatcher Matt DeGailler gave the following account of the incident:

Companies were dispatched to Fifteenth and Federal Streets at 1910 hours for several calls reporting a vacant building on fire. Engine 9, Engine 1, Engine 11 (Second Source Engine), Ladder 3, Ladder 1 (Fast Truck), Rescue 1 and Battalion 1. Engine 11 arrived to find a one-story commercial building, 100 feet by 200 feet, with smoke showing. Battalion 1 arrived and struck the all hands bringing Squad 7 (Resource Company) and Car 2. Companies gained entry to the heavily fortified building to find a large stack of pallets on fire. Car 2 (Deputy Chief Daniel Rossi) placed the fire under control at the 30 minute mark..

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

Phil Cohen
September 27 2011