Nov. 24--HAMILTON -- Twenty-four hours and seven fires later, a cluster of Hamilton homeowners are facing a combined $135,000 in damages.
Within a 24-hour shift from 8 a.m. Thursday to 8 a.m. Friday, Hamilton firefighters from throughout the city responded to four fires on the city's East Side, requiring an engine from Station 24 on the West Side to be utilized four times, according to Deputy Fire Chief Troy Pugh.
"The West Side was without protection that morning," Pugh said.
"(Thursday) exemplifies the trickle-down effect," he said, referencing a recent study on the city's fire and EMS operations that recommended closing fire stations on Shuler Avenue in East Hamilton and on Laurel Avenue in Lindenwald. The study by Berkshire Advisors Inc. also recommended increasing the work week from 48 to 52 hours to reduce as many as 17.5 positions for a savings of $825,000 in overtime costs.
"You think it's isolated to Lindenwald and the East Side, but when you take from the West Side to protect the East Side then the West Side is unprotected," Pugh said.
Mutual aid was also received Thursday from the city of Fairfield and Fairfield and Hanover townships, according to Pugh.
The most recent fire, which broke out around 1:45 a.m. Friday at 1019 Franklin St., left three residents displaced. A cause has not yet been determined, but fire officials said the home is a total loss, with damages estimated at $75,000.
Three generations of family who were home at the time -- a grandmother and a mother and her 8-year-old child -- escaped through a window on the second floor when the first and second floors of the home became fully engulfed, Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Shaw said.
"All three made their way to a window facing the street over top a porch roof; they climbed onto the porch roof and jumped to the ground at the urging of a neighbor," Shaw said.
No major injuries were reported in the blaze, although one of the woman's hair was singed from the heat. Two neighbors, from 1021 Franklin St., were also displaced due to an unsupported chimney next door that could fall onto their home in a gust of wind, Shaw said.
Strong wind gusts reached 30 mph on Friday and were expected to slow down to 20 mph overnight, according to Meteorologist Brian Coniglio of the National Weather Service in Wilmington.
A cause has also not been determined in the fatal fire Thursday in the 700 block of Pine Street. The home was destroyed -- causing about $50,000 damages and an additional $2,000 damages to a neighboring home. Officials have not yet released the name of the 37-year-old man who died in that fire.
During the Pine Street fire, Hamilton crews also responded to 1024 Belle Avenue and 1110 Edison Avenue to extinguish kitchen fires, Shaw said. No injuries were reported in those fires, and damage was estimated at $1,500 for each home.
"These were all related to cooking turkeys," Pugh said. "People are just so busy nowadays, juggling two or three things, and can forget things. As we can see by this surge (in fires), forgetting to turn your burner off comes at a cost."
Pugh said the fire department urges residents to routinely clean stoves using a degreaser and to make sure burners are turned after use.
Fire crews also responded Thursday to a dryer fire at 1064 Westview Ave. that caused $5,000 in damages; and a brush fire at 1324 University Boulevard caused by burned copper power lines.
Steven Fields, senior utilities engineer for Hamilton, said the brush fire was caused by two large pieces of energized copper lines that hit each other and caught fire. He said about 900 people were without power for an hour on Thanksgiving Day in the area of University Boulevard, Second Street and Hensley Place.
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