Structure fire at The Gazebo Restaurant in Beach Haven ruled accidental

Photo via Facebook
The restaurant was reopened
six hours later.

The Gazebo Restaurant, located in Schooner’s Wharf in Beach Haven, suffered a structure fire at the start of Labor Day weekend Friday, Aug. 29, around 11 a.m. About 25 firefighters from the Beach Haven and Ship Bottom fire departments responded to the scene.

The fire, which was contained to the kitchen’s exhaust hood, was ruled accidental by the Ocean County Fire Marshal’s Office.

“The suppression system that’s in the hood system extinguished the fire. The fire departments just did precautionary measures afterwards,” explained Bill Gee, deputy fire marshal.

Small pockets of fire, farther up the hood toward the roof, had to be extinguished, said Beach Haven Fire Chief Matt Letts.

“For the most part, it was pretty fast to put out,” he said. “The biggest issue that we had was trying to find the trapped pockets of fire inside the wall.”

Emil Delettoe, owner of The Gazebo Restaurant, said he was able to open up again six hours later.

— Kelley Anne Essinger


This article was published in The SandPaper.