Jersey Journal

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — The spectacular fire Monday night at a Downtown Jersey City high-rise under construction started on the top floor, arson investigators said yesterday, but they are still not sure what sparked the blaze.

All firefighters left the scene at 2:34 p.m. yesterday, about 18 hours after the fire began, but engineers and construction workers were assessing the damage before noon, said Jersey City Fire Director Armando Roman. The investigation is continuing.

The top of 70 Greene St., which is slated to be a residential rental tower, suffered structural damage on the 17th and 18th floors, officials said.

"This thing was 360 all the way around engulfed, and the top part of the building was lit up completely," Roman said of the scene when he arrived at the blaze after the 8:40 p.m. alarm.

"This was a difficult and stubborn fire as a result of us having to extinguish it from the exterior because to effectively fight a fire, you have to get it from the inside," Roman said. "At this fire, it was hard getting the water directly on the source of the fire."

Roman said the wood frames, cement forms and wide open floors of the building allowed the fire to spread far more quickly than it would have in a completed highrise.

With the fire engulfing the top floors, firefighters used a freight elevator to get to the 13th floor and then used their ladders to make it up to the 14th, where they hooked hoses to the standpipe, Fire Chief William Sinnott said.

Still using the ladders, firefighters climbed to the 16th floor where they found limited access to the fire and were only able to train two hoses at the flames, each pumping about 250 gallons per minute.

Because of the very high temperatures, possibility of a collapse, inability to get much water onto the fire, poor footing and other factors, the firefighters were pulled out of harm's way.

The fire was the first full response for the city's newly formed High Rise Unit and they moved their specialized equipment up into the building but quickly had to retreat with the other firefighters. Some of that equipment left behind in the building ended up damaged by fire.

Three hoses from atop extended fire truck ladders were used to hose the fire, while three ground lines swept the lower floors where falling embers were igniting secondary fires.

Firefighters were warned that the long steel braces propping up the cement forms could "be projected like javelins" in the event of a collapse, Sinnott said.

There were reports that the cascading embers were starting fires on homes on Greene Street, but that turned out to be false. Sixty families were evacuated from those buildings because of a possible collapse, which would have sent chunks of concrete plummeting on the neighborhood.

Roman said a barrier will be constructed on the building to protect the nearby homes from any falling materials as construction resumes.

The evacuated families were taken to nearby School 16 and were allowed to retrieve some things yesterday morning but were not expected to be allowed to return until last night. 

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