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Structure Fire
at Borderland Farms May 13, 2007
A little
after eleven PM, May 13th, 2007 Warwick
firefighters were dispatched to a report of
the smell of smoke in the area of Miller’s
Lane. Mothers’ Day was almost over.
Responding from
their homes, members of Warwick’s Raymond
Hose Company geared up at Station Two, and
prepared for their response in Engine 635.
Miller’s Lane is less than a mile from the
firehouse. Ken Brasier was driving the
engine. Firefighter Bill DiMartini Jr. was
riding in the officer’s position with
firefighters Dan Cerkvenick, Tim Carroll,
Travis MacClugage, and Harry Sayre III in
the crew cab.
As the apparatus was leaving the firehouse,
dispatch advised that a passerby was now
reporting a house fire at Borderland Farms
on Route 94. This new location was about a
mile beyond Miller’s Lane. Firefighter
DiMartini directed the driver to respond
directly to the Borderland location.
Enroute to
the Route 94 address the dispatch was
updated. A police officer on scene was now
confirming a working structure fire with
people trapped on the third floor roof.
Within moments, Chief Bill DiMartini Sr. and
his Second Assistant Chief Dan Schweikart,
arrived on scene from their homes nearby,
and confirmed the police officer’s
assessment. Heavy fire was showing from the
first and second floors on the number two
side of a three story 50’ by 50’ wooden
frame farmhouse with a Mansard style roof.
The number three side was fully involved
from the ground to the roof. Two victims,
screaming for help, stood atop a narrow
ledge at the third floor level of the number
one side. They were visible only briefly and
intermittently as choking black smoke
enveloped them.
Chief
DiMartini immediately radioed Warwick Truck
633, a 95-foot tower ladder responding from
Station One, advising them to, “Step it up,
we’re going to need the bucket to get these
people.”
Firefighter
DiMartini radioed the Chiefs and Captain
Marc Roe in Truck 633, that Engine 635 would
be first due. He then advised the Engine’s
crew that they would be attempting a rescue
utilizing ladders off their apparatus.
As the engine
turned into the driveway of the residence
some of the crew caught a brief glimpse of
the two victims before they were once again
obscured by smoke. Conditions inside and
outside the building were deteriorating
rapidly. Fire could now be seen rolling
behind the windows on the first floor of the
number one side.
Sensing that time was critical, DiMartini,
Cerkvenick and Carroll removed a 24-foot
ground ladder and a roof ladder from the rig
and raised the ground ladder to the front
porch roof. Without the slightest
hesitation, DiMartini began climbing. Half
way up, another member of the crew handed
him the roof ladder, which he then carried
to the porch roof. As DiMartini stepped off
the ladder, firefighter Cerkvenick followed
him up.
Having lost sight of the victims due to the
blinding smoke, DiMartini was forced to
choose a location for the roof ladder based
on the sound of their voices and the last
place he had seen them. As he did so he
discovered that the ten-foot roof ladder
just barely reached the ledge the victims
were standing on, and would have to be
placed at an extreme vertical angle.
Shouting to
the people, he guided them onto the ladder
as he steadied it for their descent. At this
point conditions were so severe that
Cerkvenick remained near the tip of the
ground ladder so that he would be able to
verbally guide DiMartini and the victims
toward it.
Conditions
continued to worsen as the rest of his crew
and other arriving members stretched hand
lines. Just as the victims stepped off the
ladder onto the porch roof, the fire self
vented from two windows beneath furiously
enveloped the ceiling of the porch and
lapping at the eaves.
With flames rising to a height of several
feet around them, the rescuers assured the
victims that they would get them down
safely, and forced them back on the narrow
roof to the front wall of the house. Flames
were now licking at the tip of the ground
ladder.
Fortunately,
other members on the ground had sensed the
gravity of the situation and handlines were
placed in service almost immediately,
beating the fire back through the windows,
and spraying the four people on the roof.
As soon as
the fire had been driven back, firefighter
Cerkvenick guided the teenaged girl and her
father onto the ground ladder where Capt.
Roe assisted them in their decent.
Knowing that
their water supply at this point was limited
to the thousand gallons the engine carried,
DiMartini and Cerkvenick wasted no time
leaving the roof.
While all
this was happening, a policeman and the
passerby who reported the fire were
assisting the elderly owner of the house as
she struggled to escape from the window of
her first floor bedroom on the number four
side.
All three
victims were assisted to the Chief’s command
vehicle where police administered oxygen.
The victims rescued from the roof were so
soot covered that it appeared they’d been
swimming in oil.
It was at
this time that it was determined that a
fourth occupant of the house, the girl’s
mother, was unaccounted for and probably
still inside.
EMS
transported the three people that were
rescued to St. Anthony Community Hospital
for treatment of smoke inhalation. The young
girl and her father were later air lifted to
Westchester Medical Center due to the
severity of their inhalation injuries.
Despite
heroic efforts by Warwick firefighters to
suppress the raging fire long enough to
locate her, conditions quickly became
untenable for life inside the building, and
the mother succumbed to the fire. Her
remains were recovered early the next
morning in a second floor bedroom located at
the two / three corner.
While many
firefighters from Warwick and surrounding
communities worked desperately to control
the fire that night, it was the fate of
Firefighters DiMartini and Cerkvenick to
prove themselves by climbing that ladder in
the nick of time to save the girl and her
father from certain injury and possible
death. The Warwick Fire Department is proud
of their bravery.
For a Full
Set of photos please visit Warwick Fire
Dept's Website
-click here-
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