The Jersey Journal
A three-alarm brush fire ripped through the Secaucus Meadowlands yesterday, leaving 4,000 Public Service Electric and Gas customers without power for a couple of hours and five firefighters with minor injuries, officials said.
The blaze, which erupted in the meadows east of the Mill Creek Mall at around 2 p.m., let off plumes of smoke that could been seen 20 miles away. It was finally was brought under control at 5:20 p.m., fire officials said.
“There were no building exposures involved in any way,” Secaucus Fire Chief George Schoenrock said. “It remained in an isolated area.”
Around 4,000 customers - mostly commercial properties along West Side Avenue between 40th and 49th Street in North Bergen - were left without power from about 4 to 6 p.m., a spokesman from PSE&G said. The brush fire burned through a power line that led to North Bergen, officials said.
Other areas experienced outages.
“I was in nearby Babies R Us (in Secaucus) around 2 p.m. when the power went out,” a person posted on The Jersey Journal’s Hudson County Now blog. “The lights came back immediately, but it took 30 minutes for the cash registers and the air conditioning to start back up...It was an odd feeling seeing big plumes of smoke across the parking lot.”
Forty-four firefighters from the volunteer Secaucus Fire Department responded to the fire, Schoenrock said. Firefighters stationed along Plaza Drive and Park Plaza Drive walked hundreds of feet of line into the Meadowlands to fight the fire, he said.
They were joined by North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue firefighters, as well as firefighters from Fairview in Bergen County. Fire personnel from other towns, including East Rutherford and Lyndhurst, were placed on standby, officials said.
Winds at first pushed the flames east, toward Route 1 and 9 Tonnelle Avenue, officials said.
The North Hudson firefighters were positioned along West Side Avenue near 46th Street in North Bergen to protect properties there, said co-director Jeff Welz. The fire shifted west, into the marshlands, North Hudson Deputy Chief David Curtis said. It finally headed north toward Fairview where it ran into a wide creek that halted its advance, officials said.
At least five firefighters suffered minor injuries, officials said.
Three firefighters from Secaucus Fire Department were treated for heat exhaustion, before returning to duty.
One firefighter from North Hudson suffered a minor injury to the back. A Fairview firefighter had lacerations to his face, Curtis said.
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