HARRISON, NJ – On January 6, 2014, ten residents who are living with relatives or in hotels due to a house fire last year on November sued the landlords and the city housing authority in Harrison, claiming that failure to fix a defective stove led to the six-alarm blaze on Warren Street.
The fire, which started around 7:00 p.m. on November 15, 2013, is stated to have originated in the kitchen area on the second floor of 209 Warren Street. According to Fire Director Richard Staler, Harrison Fire Department and firefighters from five other metropolises were able to control the fire, but not before it had stretched to and heavily damaged the adjacent homes.
Departments from Kearny, Secaucus, East Newark, Jersey City, and Bayonne all helped to combat the blaze. Staler claimed Harrison department’s efforts were hindered by a telephone service outage in the region that thwarted dispatchers from calling units in other municipalities for support in battling the fire.
“Fortunately, we got several good, fast-thinking dispatchers who took out their own cell phones and contacted the other town departments,” Staler says.
According to Staler, the Harrison departments worked to make sure that its 911 service was still functioning with Jersey City managing 911 calls for the town until the telephones were repaired and back online.
Staler asserted a sum of four families, ten people altogether, was dislodged by the blaze. Two residents of 207 Warren Street and two residents of 211 Warren Street said that they will stay with relatives, but the remaining two resident of 207 Warren Street and the remaining four residents of 211 Warren Street had nowhere to stay after being forced to leave their home.
Around 8:00 p.m. on November 15, the fire drastically expanded and traveled quickly from 209 Warren Street to its neighboring houses. Staler said that backdraft would have been greatly dangerous as it was attributable to a buildup of unescaped gasses within a room.
“I have been a firefighter for a lot of years and I have been stuck in a backdraft a few times. I am just really thankful that the damages weren’t very serious,” Staler says.
Jersey City Fire Director Orlan Rohan claimed that the backdraft would have been averted if the roof was vented, a course of placing holes in the roof which would let the trapped gasses flow out.
Six firefighters were injured in a petrifying explosion and six-alarm fire. They were quickly and carefully placed in ambulances.
“When that glass window split opened, the pieces got caught all over his face and body. He lost a lot of blood,” Rohan says of one firefighter.
The four families and the 209 Warren Street landowners safely escaped with little belongings, but nearly everything else in the houses were destroyed.
Three vehicles parked outside were also damaged.
Michael Vauban of Harbor View Restoration said his team was on the scene to panel the windows of the homes and even out the ruined structure.
“The houses had to be secured because they had a lot of roof damage,” Vauban says.
Less than two months after the six-alarm blaze on Warren Street, the ten residents of 207 and 211 Warren Street filed a lawsuit on January 6 in New Jersey Municipal Court against the landlords Badar Delhi and his wife, Amla Delhi, and the city housing authority for the blast. The court hearing was held on January 17, 2013.
The plaintiffs were collectively requesting for more than $5 million for undisclosed damages of lost valuables, humiliation, mental anguish, and property damage.
According to the litigation, starting in March 2012, Badar Delhi was told countless times of the “frequently faulty” stove, which would someday erupt if not fixed. A housing authority examiner inspected the house in March 2012 and offered an “indecisive” evaluation to the quality of the house’s equipment, instead of a pass or fail ranking.
A spokesman for the city housing authority, Morris Potter, refused to comment on the pending lawsuit. Potter said of the litigation, “None of this is accurate.” He then refused to comment further.
“I don’t see why I am sued,” Badar Delhi says. “They’re just homes. The important thing is that no one is hurt.”
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