North Beach Haven house fire requires mutual aid from LBI, mainland fire companies

Photo via BHVFC
The fire started in the garage and
extended upward in the house.

All of Long Beach Island’s fire companies along with a few mainland departments worked together to help fight a fire at a bayfront home in North Beach Haven this past Saturday, June 4. Members of the Beach Haven Volunteer Fire Co. were the first to respond to the home on the corner of West 20th Street in Long Beach Township, after being dispatched for the JetSki fire call at 6:51 p.m. The call was phoned in by a neighbor.

“When I got there the JetSkis were in the garage, but fire and smoke were pushing out of the garage pretty heavily. I could tell it was going to go pretty fast,” said Matt Letts, Beach Haven fire chief, who called for mutual aid right away. “It (the fire) was trapped in the attic. It was a small attic, so it was hard to get to.”

It took crews about an hour and a half to fully extinguish the blaze, which traveled up the exterior of the house to the second and third stories. Because the home is situated on the corner of the street, Letts said the fire fortunately wasn’t as difficult to work as other house fires might be.

“It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible,” he stated.

The fire chief said he expects more fires in the area to be harder to put out since many homes are getting larger.

“It’s going to be similar to this for most fires with the way they’re building these big houses these days,” he said. “The fire just gets into the house and goes because people are building these huge houses with all the empty voids and high ceilings. It makes it difficult for us to actually do our job and put the fire out easily. That’s what we’re expecting because people got to have their frickin’ $10 million mansions.”

Though Letts said the fire wasn’t caused by the personal watercraft, Ocean County Deputy Fire Marshal Brian Mount said it is still under investigation. Mount said the office is looking into whether or not the PWCs may have caused the fire.

“It’s not suspicious,” Mount said. “It’s an accidental fire, but we’re still looking into a couple of things as far as the events that happened, what ignited the fire. We’re still going over some of our notes and some of our evidence that we obtained.”

Thankfully the house was unoccupied at the time, and no one was hurt, Mount noted.

On scene were Ship Bottom, Surf City, High Point, Barnegat Light, Stafford Township and Forked River fire companies as well as Beach Haven, Barnegat Light and Stafford Township first aid squads. The Beach Haven Fire Co. Auxiliary and Long Beach Township and Beach Haven police departments also responded. Tuckerton, Barnegat and West Tuckerton fire companies covered the Island’s fire stations in case of other incoming calls.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

This article was published in The SandPaper.