The Trenton Times published the following article on July 8, 2013. To read the full article, click here.
Fire guts Trenton apartment house condemned after power shutoff
By Nicole Mulvaney/The Times of Trenton
on July 08, 2013 at 2:35 PM, updated July 08, 2013 at 2:38 PMTRENTON — A Greenwood Avenue apartment building was gutted by a fire last night, a month after the city condemned it and forced out the tenants because the power had been shut off for nonpayment.
“I consider the house to be a total loss,” Battalion Fire Chief Steve Amiott said today.
People using the vacated building on the 600 block of Greenwood Avenue as a shelter or clubhouse apparently started the blaze accidentally, fire officials said. The cause remains under investigation.
After the residents were told to leave last week, the city’s housing department boarded the building up. But a first-floor front apartment window was not fully secured, allowing some young people and transients to get in, said Capt. Mike Oakley, a Trenton fire marshal.
They spray painted the walls and were using open flames inside, he said. Furniture remaining inside the building fueled the blaze, Oakley said.
Amiott said the fire went to a third alarm due to the size of the building and the excessive heat last night.
Responding to multiple phone calls from neighbors, firefighters went into the unoccupied building and were able to contain the fire so it did not spread to neighboring buildings, Amiott said.
The building had been broken into while under renovation, Amiott said. He said officials are calling the cause of the blaze “undetermined criminal mischief.”
Two firefighters were injured during the fire, one suffering from smoke inhalation and the other from a twisted ankle, Amiott said.
The building was condemned a month ago, after firefighters were called there for a medical emergency, Oakley said.
“When they got there, they realized there was no power in the interior of the building,” Oakley said.
Residents said landlord Satendra Narayan should have paid the electric bills. He visited the property the day after residents were evicted and said at the time that he was hit on the head by a tenant during the visit.
Narayan could not come down from North Jersey to talk to fire officials last night but is scheduled to meet with detectives from Trenton police and the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office today, Oakley said.