New dog quickly becomes family’s best friend
Source: Julia M. Scott/The Star-Ledger, March 6, 2006

Hero elkhound’s howls alert owners to house fire

A South Brunswick family escaped their burning home yesterday thanks to their new dog that woke them up by barking ‘‘like crazy,’’ police said. The howls of the Norwegian elkhound, a hunting dog that the family had adopted just two weeks ago, stirred John Cramer at about 6:30 a.m., said police Detective Jim Ryan. Cramer, 54, went downstairs to calm the pooch, a young male named Toby, who was in a crate on the first floor, Ryan said. Cramer saw the fire creeping up the walls from the basement and the flames were a few feet from Toby. ‘‘He heard the dog barking like crazy,’’ Ryan said. ‘‘He discovered the fire had already spread to the first floor.’’ Elkhounds are loyal dogs known for alarm barking, according to Sally Spear, president of the Garden State Norwegian Elkhound Club. They have a bushy gray-andwhite coat and a bear-like face. ‘‘They will bark when something is not right so they were just following their instincts,’’ said Spear, who said she knows the Cramers because the wife is active in the club. John Cramer opened Toby’s crate and ran upstairs to rouse his wife, Cheryl, 44, and their 9-year-old daughter, Lee, who were still sleeping. A second elkhound, a champion named Casey, also was asleep upstairs. As the smoke thickened, the family and the dogs made it to safety. Three cats were not so lucky and died in the fire on Old New Road, Ryan said. The Cramer family was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, treated for smoke inhalation and released within hours, Ryan said. The elkhounds are being kept in a nearby kennel. The fire started in the basement near an electrical outlet and investigators are trying to determine if a faulty circuit sparked the flames, Ryan said. The preliminary assessment of the fire is that it was accidental. It had been burning for 30 minutes before the dog woke the Cramers, Ryan said. Firefighters arrived at 6:39 a.m. and had the blaze under control in 25 minutes. The outside of the house does not appear badly damaged, Ryan said. But the walls are badly charred on the first floor and basement and the second floor is soggy and smells of smoke. ‘‘As far as living in it, I don’t think that’s going to be possible,’’ Ryan said. Investigators are determining whether the house will have to be demolished.

Smoke inhalation killed boy home alone
Source: Suleman Din/The Star-Ledger, March 6, 2006

Sayreville child not breathing when firefighters found him in bedroom

The 5-year-old Sayreville boy left home alone while his father went to work Saturday morning died of smoke inhalation in a house fire, authorities confirmed yesterday. Firefighters found Erik Sturgis in his secondfloor bedroom during their second sweep of the Deerfield Road home, said Chief Stamatis Bratsano of the President Park Fire Company. Erik had stopped breathing, and rescuers began performing CPR, Bratsano said. The boy was rushed to Raritan Bay Medical Center in Perth Amboy, where he was pronounced dead. Bratsano said they received the emergency call at 11:21 a.m. Saturday. Firefighters and equipment arrived at the house within five minutes. ‘‘By 11:45 a.m. we knocked down the fire,’’ Bratsano said. ‘‘In the first three minutes, we had the front door open.’’ The fire was limited to the ground floor of the house, Bratsano said. ‘‘We started a primary search, and didn’t find anyone. We then started our secondary search, and that’s when he was discovered, on the second floor. ‘‘We didn’t know anyone was inside. The doors were locked, there was no car in the driveway, and police had spoken to neighbors. But you’re not going to assume anything. You search anyway,’’ the chief said. There was only smoke damage on the second floor, Bratsano said. The firefighters who found Sturgis were part of a ‘‘vent team,’’ whose duty is to break windows and allow smoke to escape. ‘‘The boy was sitting on the floor, underneath a window, his legs partially under the bed,’’ Bratsano said. Bratsano headed an emergency meeting at headquarters yesterday to discuss the tragedy. ‘‘You’re a 5-year-old, what do you do?’’ Bratsano said. ‘‘You get scared. You’re told to lock the doors, and told not to leave the house. ‘‘. . . It’s just a shame,’’ he said. Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said the medical examiner determined Erik died from smoke inhalation. The investigation is continuing, Kaplan said. No one has been charged. ‘‘We’re leaning toward determining it to be accidental,’’ Bratsano said of the house fire. ‘‘It’s hard to know what happened right now.’’ Kevin Sturgis, 31, arrived for work at the Wakefern Food Corp. warehouse in Jamesburg just after 7 a.m., said company spokeswoman Karen Meleta. It is unclear why he left Erik alone, Kaplan said Saturday. Neighbors said the single father had trouble finding baby sitters. In fact, the Division of Youth and Family Services was involved last spring when it was determined that Erik was being cared for by an ‘‘inappropriate’’ baby sitter, spokesman Andy Williams said Saturday. DYFS officials worked with Sturgis to find a new baby sitter and the case was closed in July. Meleta said Sturgis, a shipping clerk, normally worked Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. He was working Saturday, she said, filling in for a co-worker’s 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift. Sturgis has been with the company since 1998, but only recently took the shipping clerk position because he preferred the schedule, Meleta said. He also requested and received a 3 p.m. lunch break on weekdays, Meleta said. The regular school day at Emma L. Arleth Elementary, where Erik attended kindergarten, ends at 3 p.m. Sturgis did not return to his house yesterday. Friends and neighbors stopped by throughout the day, leaving flowers, toys and balloons. Some talked about the boy and his dad. Erik would take a bus to school, and sat next to Chris Karas, 7, said Chris’ father, David Wasilewski. ‘‘He was my best friend,’’ Chris said. ‘‘We used to play games, like who can get to their parents first. He was always happy, whenever I told a joke he laughed. But some kids on the bus would bully him.’’ Wasilewski and his neighbor, Liz Elardo, also recalled the father and son. ‘‘I would see the both of them standing together at the bus stop,’’ Elardo said. ‘‘Every weekday morning, they would be the first there. Erik would have his little Thomas the Train backpack on, and be smiling and waving.’’ ‘‘The boy was always properly dressed,’’ Wasilewski said. ‘‘And I’d see the two of them outside, playing together. ‘‘I knew (Kevin) tried the best he could,’’ Wasilewski said. ‘‘All you had to do was ask anyone, anybody, for help.’’ ‘‘We all make mistakes,’’ Elardo said. ‘‘Unfortunately, this is something he is going to have to live with for the rest of his life.’’ Erik’s death is the latest tragedy to befall the family. Kevin and Christina Sturgis divorced in May 2001, after less than a year of marriage. Seven months later, when Erik was 17 months old, Christina was killed in a murdersuicide. Linden firefighter James Hoehman shot Christina Sturgis, 22, in Mansfield, Warren County, before turning the gun on himself, police said. Erik was visiting his father when his mother was murdered.

Tavern building destroyed by fire
Source: Tom Hayon/Photo: Matt Rainey/The Star-Ledger, February 28, 2006

PERTH AMBOY: An 80-year-old Hall Avenue building that housed a bar and rental units was destroyed by a fire over the weekend, officials said yesterday. The fire at 287 Hall Ave. was reported at 11:10 p.m. Saturday and started in a room on the second floor, Fire Chief Lawrence Cattano said. Fifty firefighters from the city, South Amboy and Woodbridge battled the blaze in the building that housed the Trade Winds bar on the first floor and eight boarding rooms and an apartment on the second floor. The fire started in one of the boarding rooms and apparently was accidental, but investigators have not yet determined the cause, Cattano said yesterday. All of the tenants and bar patrons escaped before firefighters arrived. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene, the chief said. Officials said the roof caved in and the second floor collapsed. The building was constructed in the early 1920s and had gone through several renovations, Cattano said.

Empty building burns in industrial park fire
Source: The Star-Ledger, February 28, 2006

EDISON: A brush fire at the Raritan Center industrial park burned for about six hours yesterday, charring grassland and spreading to an abandoned building, police said. The fire near Olympic Drive began about 4:15 p.m., Lt. Greg Formica said. The fire at the abandoned building burned itself out by about 10:30 p.m., he said. There were no injuries, and the cause of the fire remained under investigation.

Natural gas line feeds inferno as fire guts South River home
Source: The Star-Ledger, February 28, 2006

A natural gas-fueled fire in the basement of a South River home spread to the attic of the 2 1 /2-story building, forcing firefighters to evacuate homes on either side. Seven people who were in the house watching television shortly before 8:20 p.m. Sunday heard a loud bang in the basement moments before seeing the fire at 23 Levinson Ave. All the people escaped. Eighty-one firefighters from the borough, East Brunswick and Sayreville rushed to the scene. Borough Fire Chief Gerard Murphy saw smoke coming from the basement and first-floor windows when he arrived, but flames crawled up through the first and second floors and into the attic. The home’s gas meter was knocked off its supply line, and gas fueled the fire, preventing firefighters from entering the building until a crew from Public Service Electric & Gas reached the scene and turned off the gas going to the house. ‘‘Fire was definitely blowing out all the windows,’’ borough Deputy Fire Official John Ruzicki said yesterday as he stood outside the damaged house. Plywood was nailed over the open windows, and a gaping hole in the side of the house, exposing part of the basement and first floor, was partially boarded up. Charred bricks and siding lay strewn on the ground on the side of the house. As natural gas was leaking from the line, firefighters evacuated residents in homes on either side of the fire, and the people were taken to the St. Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church on Jeffrie Avenue, which was opened briefly as a shelter, said Ruzicki. The two other houses were not damaged and residents later were allowed to return. Two borough firefighters, John Solpic and Steven Drugos, were taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where each was treated for minor injuries and released. Officials yesterday said they had not determined the cause of the fire.

 

GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!’  Sayreville family flees townhome blaze
Source: Tom Haydon/The Star-Ledger, February 22, 2006 Photos: Patti Supone/The Star-Ledger

Samantha Slater was in the basement of her Sayreville townhouse early yesterday when she heard the bang. When she opened the door to the furnace room, Slater saw orange flames that were spreading quickly. Slater ran, dashing up the stairs to get her mother, sister and two friends sleeping in the 2 1 /2-story house. ‘‘She yelled, ‘Get out of the house! It’s on fire,’ ’’ said Samantha’s mother, Nancy Slater. The mother rushed out of her room into ‘‘smoke so thick you couldn’t see the stairs. We got out here and you could actually see the flames going up.’’ ‘‘We grabbed nothing . W e didn’t have time. I was standing out here in bare feet. I borrowed somebody’s coat and I don’t even know whose it is,’’ Nancy Slater said as she stood near her house, which was destroyed in the blaze. Firefighters responding to the 4:30 a.m. fire entered the house on Gwizdak Court, but were quickly forced outside. ‘‘We got guys in about 6 feet, and we had to pull them because the floor started buckling,’’ Assistant Chief William Brugnoli said. ‘‘Flames were coming out the front and rear. The whole second floor collapsed. The first floor is gone.’’ Nobody was injured in the blaze, which was attacked by more than 50 firefighters from Sayreville, South Amboy and South River. The first report firefighters received was that the furnace had exploded. Borough Fire Chief Stamatis Bratsano said the ‘‘fire was rolling across the attic, and it hit the firewalls, and the firewalls did their job.’’ Although the Slaters’ house was destroyed and will have to be torn down, Bratsano said there was only smoke and water damage to the neighboring homes. Each shares a wall with the Slaters’ home. All the first- and secondfloor windows were knocked out of the burned house. Samantha Slater, clutching a borrowed blanket to protect herself from the cold morning breeze, stood with family and friends in front of their burned home as firefighters sat on the sill of a broken front window and reached inside the home with a grappling pole. From the debris they removed a pocketbook, a pair of shoes and a few other personal items. Charred beams and twisted vinyl lay strewn over the yard and on top of bent and broken bushes. Three days earlier on Saturday, Samantha Slater celebrated her 25th birthday with more than 40 friends at a Sayreville tavern. Yesterday Red Cross workers were helping the Slaters find temporary shelter. Residents of the adjacent homes also had to temporarily relocate, borough officials said. Nancy Slater and her daughters had lived in the house for 21 years. "There was a lot we had in there, " the mother said. The family also had four cats that had not been found as of late yesterday morning. Still, Nancy Slater was grateful her daughter discovered the fire in time to warn everybody. "If (Samantha) hadn't seen it, we wouldn't have gotten out," the mother said.

Sayreville firefighters hose down the remnants of a blaze that destroyed a townhouse on Gwizdak Court yesterday morning. A furnace explosion may have caused the fire.

Highland Park firemen douse apartment blaze
Source: The Home News Tribune, February 21, 2006

A resident of the Old Queens Apartments was displaced yesterday morning after a kitchen fire in his apartment. Firefighters arrived at the apartment building at 469 S. Second Ave. shortly after 9:45 a.m. and quickly got the blaze under control. Crews remained on the scene until noon. Officials said the fire started in the kitchen but the cause is still under investigation. Authorities did not release the resident's name, but said he was not injured in the fire. Diane Concannon, a spokeswoman for American Red Cross of Central Jersey, said the agency was providing food and clothing assistance to the resident, who is staying with a family member or friend. Concannon said other residents were only temporarily displaced.

 

Firefighters battle a blaze yesterday morning in a downstairs apartment at Old Queens Apartment complex in Highland Park. Photo: Mark R. Sullivan/The Home News Tribune
 

Hot Mail in South Brunswick
Source: The Star-Ledger, February 17, 2006 Photo: South Brunswick Police

A postal truck caught fire yesterday on Ross Street in the Kendall Park section of South Brunswick, police said. The Kendall Park Fire Company had the blaze extinguished shortly before 4pm. Although the carrier had delivered 95 percent of his route, postal officials estimate that mail to some 70 households burned.

Fire destroys vacant dwelling
Source: Jerry Barca and Suzanne C. Russel, The Home News Tribune, February 14, 2006

PERTH AMBOY — Fire ruined a vacant apartment in the John Delaney Homes public housing complex yesterday. Electricity and heat into the apartment had been shut off before the fire, said city Fire Chief Larry Cattano. "It's obvious it's an outside means that started (the fire)," Cattano said. Authorities are investigating what caused the afternoon blaze. Emergency personnel received a call about the blaze at 2:42 p.m. Flames were blowing out of the windows of the brick-faced garden apartment when firefighters arrived at the Sofield Avenue scene. The fire was under control in 15 minutes, Cattano said. After the flames were extinguished, firefighters continued to douse the smoldering, charred apartment, which sat between vacant apartments in a 10-unit row where five units are being used. The John Delaney Homes — off Chamberlain Avenue — have been used to provide temporary housing for about 33 families displaced by last fall's Hurricane Katrina. The housing complex was available and has multiple vacant apartments because the units were slated to be demolished to make way for a new $100 million Perth Amboy High School. The school project was put on hold after the state announced last summer that it did not have enough funds for the school construction.

BLAST RUINS MILLTOWN MARKET
Demolition of store is possible
Authorities probing cause of explosion at historic building
Source: Tom Haydon, The Star-Ledger, January 10, 2006

A 150-year-oldbuilding on South Main Street in Milltown may be torn down after an explosion blew out the front of a ground-floor grocery store, damaged the foundation and shook surrounding buildings. Members of the State Police bomb squad were assisting borough officers in seeking the cause of the blast that occurred at 7:45 p.m. Sunday at 63 S. Main St., borough Fire Chief Dave Petry said. The blast lifted the second and third stories off the foundation, which was shifted slightly by the explosion, Petry said. Nobody was in the building at the time of the explosion, which pushed the front door and groundfloor front wall of Cleopatra’s food market out 4 feet onto the sidewalk, along with store counters and an ice cream freezer. One front window was shattered, and glass was blown across the street. Another plate glass window measuring 5 feet high and 7 feet wide was sent more than 50 feet across the road, landing next to a mailbox in one piece, Petry said. Rachel Parson was watching television in her home next door to the market when she heard and felt the explosion. ‘‘The entire house shook,’’ she said of her home. Ken Skalla and his wife, Judy, were in their house across the street when they heard the blast, and rushed outside. ‘‘There was just dust. No flame, no smoke. We were out here and in 20 seconds it was over,’’ Skalla said. ‘‘We’re used to (car) accidents out here. At first we thought a car ran into (the store), but then you could tell everything had come of the building,’’ Skalla said. ‘‘There’s a lot of pedestrians in this area. If this had been a summer and somebody had been walking by the store, there would have been some serious injuries,’’ Skalla said. Nobody was injured but about a dozen residents were evacuated to a nearby hall for about three hours until utility workers checked natural gas line connections in surrounding homes. Parson and Skalla each smelled gas immediately after the blast. Petry said a natural gas line was ruptured by the blast, but there was no determination that a leaking gas line caused the blast. Borough officials said investigators yesterday planned to examine a heating system in the rear of the ground floor. In recent years, the food store had catered to Arabic immigrants and their families , Skalla said. St. Mary Coptic Orthodox Church in nearby East Brunswick has a large congregation of Egyptian immigrants, and often the store was busy on Sunday with customers coming from the church, Skalla said. The ground floor of the building was constructed in the 1850s, according to borough records. For more than a hundred years, the building had been a meat market, said D. Bruce Schwendeman, past president of the Milltown Historical Society. Razing the building ‘‘will be a blow to the historical society,’’ Schwendeman said. For many years there was a butcher shop in the building run by the Glock family, the grandparents of Middlesex County Freeholder Director David Crabiel. ‘‘My mother (Helen Glock) grew up in that house,’’ Crabiel said yesterday. The business was later run by Ferdinan Kuhlthau, a member of a prominent borough family for whom the nearby Kuhlthau Avenue was named, Schwendeman said. ‘‘He had a sign on the side of the building, ‘Never a bum steer,’ that people would remember,’’ Schwendeman said.

Blaze kills home’s new resident
Woman, 47, had gone to live with a friend just two days before fire
Source: Tom Haydon, The Star-Ledger, January 5, 2006

A woman who had moved into a friend’s Monroe Township home on Sunday died two days later in a fire that damaged more than half the house. Firefighters responding to the blaze Thursday night at 602 Englishtown Road found the body of Elizabeth Bellavia, 47, near a bedroom door in the house, said Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Ralph Cretella. Fire officials said four Monroe firefighters entered the house moments after arriving at the scene, found Bellavia and carried her out. Paramedics pronounced the woman dead at the scene. Bellavia’s relatives yesterday were groping for answers about the fire and receiving conflicting stories, said Donna Gathy, Bellavia’s sister-in-law.‘‘We were told firefighters didn’t go into the house until the fire was out. That’s from people who saw the fire,’’ Gathy said. She was also told by witnesses that Bellavia was found on a living room couch, contrary to reports from authorities, who said the woman was found in the doorway of her bedroom. Bellavia ‘‘was full of life. She will be sadly missed,’’ Gathy said. Monroe District 1 Fire Chief Joseph Sensale said the first firefighter search team to enter the house found Bellavia ‘‘within three to five minutes.’’ Sensale said the victim was brought out quietly to avoid attracting attention from onlookers . The chief said witnesses may not have been aware Bellavia’s body had been brought out. Cretella said Bellavia was pronounced dead at the scene at 8:47 p.m. Although township fire officials and Middlesex County arson investigator Todd O’Malley were still seeking the cause of the fire yesterday, Cretella said the blaze may have started accidentally. ‘‘We’re leaning toward an accidental (cause),’’the assistant prosecutor said. Bellavia, who previously resided in Monroe, moved into the Englishtown Road house on Sunday to live with a friend, Debra Lebrun. Lebrun, who has rented the house for about eight years, was not home when the fire started. Lebrun was trying to retrieve property from the house yesterday morning. She declined to comment about the fire. Lebrun’s 13-year-old dog, Missey, died in the fire, along with a stray cat Lebrun had adopted. The two-story wood and brick home is one of three rental houses on the Englishtown Road property. Firefighters and tenants in the other rental units said the fire appeared to start in the rear of the house. The fire was reported at 7:17 p.m. ‘‘Flames were coming out the back and the windows were exploding,’’ said Connie Sharar, who lives in a rental unit behind the house that burned. ‘‘It was real scary.’’ Tenants in the rear house saw the fire and called police, then tried to get in the front door of the burning building to check for Lebrun. ‘‘We tried to get in but there was no way. It was all smoke,’’ said Robert Maaser, who lives in an apartment in the rear house. As Maaser backed away from the front door, he heard the dog barking in the basement. A Monroe police officer pulled in the long driveway to the house, heard the dog and broke a basement window in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the 13-year-old pet, Maaser said. ‘‘One great thing was that help arrived fast. In five minutes firefighters were here,’’ Maaser said. The dog and cat were found huddled together in the basement, apparently succumbing to the smoke and heat because the basement was not damaged by the blaze, tenants said. The Middlesex County Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy on Bellavia’s body yesterday and determined she died of smoke inhalation and burns, Cretella said. Rich Eisinger of Freehold, the owner of the rental property, said he had never had a fire in any of the units before. Bellavia was born in New Brunswick and grew up in Old Bridge, graduating from Madison Central High School, said her sister, Fawn Lance of Spotswood. Madison Central has since merged with Cedar Ridge High School to form the current Old Bridge High School. Bellavia worked as traffic manager for Rising Star transportation company before running her own company, Puma Transportation of Matawan, but had become ill and had not worked recently, Lance said. Bellavia was pre-deceased by a sister, Crisanne Miller, who died of kidney cancer in 1996, Lance said. Bellavia is also survived by her mother, Gloria Gathy; a brother, Richard Gathy; a sister and brother-in-law, Carol and Michael Pugaczewski; and a brother-in-law, Robert Lance; along with a niece and nephew.

Fire engulfs truck reported stolen
Source: The Star-Ledger, January 4, 2006

CARTERET: A stolen truck was found ablaze in the parking lot of a manufacturing plant, police said yesterday. Employees of ICL Performance Products on Roosevelt Avenue reported the fire engulfing a black pickup truck at 7:57 a.m. Saturday, authorities said. After firefighters extinguished the fire, officers discovered that the truck was reported stolen from Lakewood and was missing its front wheels, police said. Officials have determined the fire was intentional and are reviewing surveillance tapes as part of their investigation, authorities said.

House damaged by workers’ fire
Source: The Star-Ledger, January 4, 2006

EAST BRUNSWICK: A house under renovation was damaged after construction workers built a fire in the gas-fed fireplace that was not intended for burning wood, police said yesterday. A neighbor reported seeing smoke coming from the vacant house on New Brunswick Avenue at 4:39 p.m. Saturday, authorities said. Firefighters quickly put out the flames that damaged a wall and the fireplace, police said.