Eight Killed in Fire After Gasoline Thrown on Exits
features
A fire reported to be the result of a lover’s quarrel killed eight residents of a tenement house in Paterson, N.J. Gasoline had been poured on the front and rear exits and on the main stairway. Three fire fighters and 21 residents were injured by the fire and 100 were left homeless.
Fire fighters had just placed their apparatus back in service after working several hours at a third-alarm arson fire when Station 11 was sounded at 2:58 a.m. last Oct. 15 for a fire at 89 Park Ave. The four-story brick building housed 16 families. It had a main open stairway up the center with a rear outside metal staircase and metal fire escape on the front.
Photo by Lou Tunno
First-arriving companies encountered a mass of flame over the entire facade of the building, engulfing both fire escapes and the central stairway. The tenants, most of whom were asleep at the time, were trapped on all four floors. Six people who had jumped from upper windows were lying on the ground outside. People were standing at numerous windows and were dropping children into the arms of fire fighters and civilians assisting at the scene. Many out standing ladder rescues were made by the first-due companies. Four people were taken down ladders from the third floor after the fourth alarm was transmitted at 3:08 a.m.
Fire jumps alley
To complicate the situation, the fire jumped a 6-foot alley and spread to a fully occupied similar building of four stories.
First-in companies set up master streams to knock down the flames over the outside fire escapes. This action enabled truck companies to ladder the front of the building and rescue at least a dozen persons.
During a search and overhaul operation in the original fire building, six bodies, all from the same family, were found in a third-floor apartment. Two other victims were found in apartments on the fourth floor. Two of the injured were so badly burned that they were transferred to a special burn unit at another hospital. This was the largest loss-of-life fire in Paterson since 1917.
Witnesses
Leonides Garcia, a 37-year-old suspect, was picked up by police within two hours of the fire and held on $100,000 bond at the Passaic County Jail. Witnesses said they saw a man, who is known in the neighborhood, pour gasoline outside the first-floor apartment of Mercedes Lozano and her five children. Moments later the building was a mass of flames.
Mrs. Lozano and her children escaped serious injury. They were probably saved because Mrs. Lozano’s brother Juan was watching the late show on T.V. and saw liquid coming under the door of the apartment. He yelled for everybody to wake up and grabbed two of the children. By the time they got to the window, the place was a mass of flames.
Leonides Garcia was convicted of arson and at the writing of this article was awaiting sentencing.
