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Jersey Beach Fire

April 19, 2014 by  

Jersey Beach Fire, A fast-moving 7-alarm fire, fanned by strong ocean winds, burned million dollar homes to the ground and damaged nearly a dozen others in Sea Isle City, N.J. on Good Friday.

As the rubble smoldered Saturday morning, crews returned to the 7800 block of Pleasure Avenue at the beach to put out some hot spots.

Flames began to flicker around 4 p.m. Friday and quickly spread to a total of three structures sharing the same lot, city officials said. In total five homes were consumed.

“It was just amazing how fast the first house went up in flames,” said witness Daniel O’Connell, who is staying on the island with his family for the Easter holiday. “I followed the smell [of smoke] and speeding police cars to the house where there was just a small amount of smoke coming out of the basement of one of the houses.”

Within minutes, however, O’Connell said the fire simply erupted.

“The police were attempting to put out the fire with fire extinguishers, but at that time it was too late,” the 15-year-old Jenkintown, Pa.-native told NBC10.com. “The house started pouring black smoke out of the basement, so I rode around the block [on my bike] to get up wind of the fire and out of the smoke. From here, I could see the flames erupting and traveling up the house.”

The structures were side-by-side townhouses, each about 2,000 square feet, according to Sea Isle City Mayor Leonard Desiderio. According to data on the real estate website Zillow.com, the beachfront homes were listed for more than $2 million.

“The wind was blowing hard from the beach, going towards the bay,” said Loretta Giello, who has a summer home on 85th Street. “And I kept hearing sirens and sirens, and I saw so much black smoke that I started to run down there to see what was happening.”

NBC10 First Alert Weather Meteorologist Sheena Parveen said onshore winds were gusting near 15 to 20 mph at the time of the fire, which is pretty typical.

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