As the flames and smoke began to build around Marie Zielinski, she placed a desperate call to 911 begging for help.
“Listen … we have a fire,” the 89-year-old woman pleaded before her voice trailed off, her words drowned out by smoke alarms. The 911 dispatcher tried to get more, shouting “hello” over the alarms, but the connection was lost.
Zielinski died in the devastating Sea Isle City blaze on Nov. 29, 2018, in a first-floor room in the home less than two blocks from the beach. An autopsy determined Zielinski died of smoke inhalation.
But nearly a year after the deadly fire, it remains unclear what, if any, efforts were made by firefighters to rescue Zielinski from the burning building, or when firefighters at the scene became aware that she was trapped inside.
An NJ Advance Media review of call logs and reports filed after the fire show a troubling lack of communication and incomplete accounting of the first two hours after the Sea Isle City Volunteer Fire Department responded. The department has since come under scrutiny after state officials determined three Sea Isle chiefs lacked leadership certification. Residents angry about fire-response times have been calling for Sea Isle to consider a paid department to protect residents of the popular Jersey Shore resort.
That measure comes as little consolation to Zielinski’s family, left with questions about whether their matriarch, who was otherwise in good health, could have been saved.
"She wanted to live a nice long life and see her grandkids graduate from high school,” the Zielinski family told NJ Advance Media through a spokesperson when asked to comment for this story. “She did everything she could to take care of herself.”
Desperate calls for help
Zielinski’s 911 call came in at 11:35 a.m. — the same moment Sea Isle police say they pulled up outside the burning 54th Street home, and just several minutes before Sea Isle firefighters arrived.
But 911 audio from that day reveals confusion about whether Zielinski was really inside. Before firefighters arrived, police rescued the girlfriend of Zielinski’s son from a second-floor deck, as well as a tenant from another unit in the home. But there were conflicting reports about whether Zielinski was there, according to police reports.
By the time police say firefighters arrived at 11:44 a.m. at her three-story beach home, Zielinski had moved to a first-floor bedroom in the back of the house and activated her medical alert device. That triggered a call to her daughter Nina Rosu, who was in neighboring Avalon for work.
Rosu dialed 911 at 11:46 a.m. desperately seeking information and alerting dispatchers her mom was in the house.
“My mother, 89-year-old mother, is there," Rosu said in her 911 call, telling the dispatcher she believed her mom was on the top floor, which she described as a loft. "Somebody called me and said my house is on fire.”
Rosu rushed to the scene, but with the bridge between Avalon and Sea Isle closed for extensive repairs, she didn’t arrive until after noon. She was shocked to find her home engulfed in flames and with the blaze spreading to other nearby residences, she told NJ Advance Media.
Police records show officers reported at 12:13 p.m. that they believed no one was still inside the house. But another call recorded eight minutes later contradicted that finding.
It would be 24 hours before Zielinski’s body was recovered from the charred home.
Ocean City fire department takes over
The blaze drew a massive response from beyond Sea Isle as firefighters from eight neighboring departments were called into action. That included the Ocean City Fire Department, which took the unusual step of taking command from Sea Isle’s fire department at 1:15 p.m., nearly two hours after the blaze started.
Ocean City’s department provided a three-page narrative in its incident report detailing the steps firefighters took after assuming command and until the fire was deemed under control at 2:41 p.m. Command was returned to Sea Isle at 3:47 p.m.
The Sea Isle City Volunteer Fire Department provided its report on the fire in response to an Open Public Records Request by NJ Advance Media. The narrative was two words: “structure fire.”
The Sea Isle report provides no accounting of whether any effort was made to locate Zielinski, and Sea Isle officials have declined multiple requests for comment. Incident reports obtained from other departments that responded do not say if an effort was made in the beginning of the fire to search for Zielinski.
Ocean City Fire Chief James Smith told NJ Advance Media that transferring control to a neighboring fire department is not normal, but can happen. He said the transfer occurred because Ocean City, which is a paid department, had a higher-ranking officer at the scene.
The Ocean City Fire Department’s narrative in the post-incident report described a chaotic scene.
There was no command post where firefighters could receive assignments, there wasn’t an accountability officer assigned to keep track of firefighters’ locations, and radio communication between the agencies was virtually impossible because Sea Isle didn’t have a frequency that could support outside departments, Ocean City Deputy Chief Vito DiMarco wrote in his incident report.
A New Jersey State Fire Marshal report obtained by NJ Advance Media says officials from their office looked for Zielinski on the third floor after 3 p.m., nearly four hours after responders first got to the scene. But Zielinski was on the first floor, and by that point, the house was partially collapsed, the fire marshal’s report said.
The cause of the fire was never determined.
Sea Isle fire department under scrutiny
The incident commander at the fatal fire was then-Assistant Fire Chief Mike Tighe, who authored the two-word incident narrative.
Tighe was one of the three fire chiefs forced to resign in late June after a state investigation uncovered the trio was not certified for incident command. Out of the 22 Sea Isle firefighters who responded to the November fire, at least three others were found to be uncertified months later, according to state records.
Tighe declined comment for this story. Sea Isle Police Chief Thomas McQuillen — who oversees the fire department in the role of public safety director — did not return requests for comment. Sea Isle City spokeswoman Katherine Custer declined to comment about how the fire was handled.
The blaze that claimed Zielinski’s life was one of four major fires in the last year in the resort town, which has a year-round residential population of around 2,000. The population swells to 50,000 on busy summer weekends.
Janice Pantano lost her car and vacation home in a vehicle-turned-house fire on Memorial Day weekend. In a phone interview, she expressed frustration in the response time by Sea Isle firefighters in May. She said police told her it took 16 minutes for firefighters to arrive.
Her neighbor Kevin Brennan, whose home was also damaged in the fire, appeared before the city council in May to request a fire commission study be conducted and additional funds allocated for fire protection. Others have called for a paid fire department.
Pantano was stunned to hear council members say they didn’t think Sea Isle was at a point where it needed a paid department.
Remembering Marie Zielinski
Zielinski was laid to rest on Dec. 7 at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania, following a Catholic burial service. She grew up in the South Jersey area and later moved to Sea Isle where she devoted her later years to spending time with her three children.
Zielinski enjoyed fundraising for local charities, playing the piano and serving as a member of organizations like the Catholic Daughters of America and the Sea Isle City Garden Club.
But family was the most important part of her life. Everyone got together for near-weekly dinners, during which they told jokes and looked back on fond memories, according to her family.
Those memories are all Zielinski’s family has left. Nearly a year later, they continue to struggle with the grief left by her passing. They don’t understand how a woman who seemed like she had so much life left to live could suddenly be gone.
“She just was one of those people who liked to meet people and do what she could to help,” the family said through a spokesperson. "She was just an amazing person.”
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