Fire displaces six Trentonians

Jul 03, 2010

By: Andria Carter

By SULAIMAN ABDUR-RAHMAN

TRENTON — An accidental fire displaced Six Trentonians Saturday afternoon in the 500 block of Roosevelt Street, including a grandmother who had to be rushed to a local hospital for observation.

Battalion Chief Frank Fanning of the Trenton Fire Department said the grandmother was hospitalized as a precautionary measure: “She’s elderly. It wasn’t due to a smoke condition.”

“They took my mom to the hospital,” displaced resident Bridget Riggan told The Trentonian as she stood outside her flame-ravaged home not long after firefighters doused the one-alarm blaze. Riggan said she lived at the house with her mom, husband, daughter and family friends.

Putting on a strong face, Riggan said she received news of the fire while she was at work and that she left her job site early to see what was left of her house — a place she said she called home for the past seven years. The home is located near Ingham Avenue off Calhoun Street not far from the Trenton-Ewing border.

The fire erupted about 12:40 p.m. in a second-floor bedroom due to a hot curling iron being left on a bed, Fanning said. Four fire engines, two ladder trucks and the fire Rescue One vehicle responded to the blaze, bringing it under control shortly after 1 p.m., Fanning said.

“The place is uninhabitable,” Fanning added. “There’s extensive smoke, heat and water damage on the second floor and water damage on the first floor. And the middle bedroom was burned out.”

Riggan declined to talk about the loss of her property: “I don’t even want to go there,” she said. She also said her mom was being treated for high blood pressure.

Of the six people displaced, four were adults and two were teenagers aged 13 and 15, Fanning said. After knocking the blaze down, firefighters helped the displaced residents to recover some of their salvageable belongings.

Fire officials said the local American Red Cross will assist the displaced Trentonians with temporary housing.

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