Today was an usually busy end of the day for the Morton Rutledge Volunteers. It all started around rush hour when the company was dispatched to relocate to Station 52 (Brookhaven) while they operated at a house fire in Middletown Township. Engine 13-1 (Holstein) and Command 13 (T.Kopp) responded with a crew of 8.

While on location, the comanies along with Sta. 14 (Swarthmore) were dispatched to the 500 block of North Morton Avenue for wires down. 11-9B (Kemp) went enroute and arrived on location advising that a transformer had blown behind 2 Fairhill Road. PECO was notified and no fire company services were needed.

While still covering Station 52, Companies 11, 13, 14, 44, RIT 08, M102 were dispatched to 13 S. Morton Ave, Rosario’s Restaurant for the building fire at approx. 19:19hrs.  14-9(Chief Jones) and 11-9B (Asst. Chief Kemp) went responding within moments after dispatch.  While enroute, fire board advised the responding Chiefs that the police were on location with Heavy Smoke showing.  11-9B advised to have the call re-dispatched as a “Working Fire.”  11-9B arrived on location and established Morton Ave Command reporting what appeared to be a basement fire with Heavy Smoke pushing out of the basement access hatch out front of the building.  RIT 08, Tower 44, and Tower 14 were ordered to the front of the building.  Crews from Tower 44 stretched an 1 3/4 “ line to the front door, and then began working with Tower 14’s crew to open up the building.  11-1 and 44-4 were ordered to the rear of the property to complete a primary search of the 2^nd floor apartments.   Snozzle 08 also staged in the rear of the property providing another RIT team in the rear.

The crew from Engine 08 cut the access hatch open to the basement releasing a continuous flow of heavy dark smoke and the sound of electrical equipment arcing.  14-2 arrived on location and was ordered to hit the hydrant in front of 6 Yale Ave and lay in to the front of the building, while 14-1 picked up the hydrant at Morton Ave/Mitchell Ave and established a water supply to Tower 44.  13-1, 11-9(Chief Holstein), and 13-9(Chief Kopp) all responded from station 52 where they had been on a cover assignment and staged at Morton Ave/Mitchell Ave.  11-9 took the role of Operations, while 13-9 took the role of Manpower, 44-9B (Deputy Chief Huczko) was Sector C Command, and 08-9(Chief Signora) was RIT Command.

11-9B, 14-9, and 44-9(Chief Woolson) staged out front of the building and came up with an action plan for mitigation of the incident.  Crews at this time were still inside the building attempting to locate the source of the fire, when a strong odor of Natural Gas was detected.  Crews with a meter found reading both inside and outside the building.  After confirming with PECO that there was a realistic possibility of an explosion, Morton Ave Command advised Fire Board to have all crews Evacuate the building and began relocating the staging areas further away from the building.  With the conditions of the fire becoming more hazardous, Morton Ave Command ordered crews to evacuate the residents of the entire block and requested RIT 03 to be dispatched to the scene.

PECO was on location working hard to secure the Gas and Electric.  Once the utilities were secured, the fire was contained to the exterior utility access area, and crews ventilated the building.  Red Cross was notified to respond to the Morton-Rutledge Station to assist in the placement of 10 residents from the block.

While handling the Rosario’s incident, available manpower and EMS assessed the occupants of a vehicle that was stuck on the Septa R3 line which was struck by the outbound train.  Luckily, the occupants were out of the vehicle at the time it was struck.  Fire Board notified Septa and their emergency response team responded to handle the incident.  Morton Ave Command also sent 14-1 up to Church St/Christian St. for report of a power lines down in the street.

Great job was done by all working on scene and in handling several incidents at once.  All crews cleared the scene at approx. 23:40hrs.

A Special Thank You goes out to the crew from Canteen 47 who left right from the Fire Scene in Middletown Twp. and responded right to Morton after already being in service for hours.

Visit the files page in the left margin for the recored audio of 13 S. Morton Ave.

We would like to thank Frank Wesnowski, Brian Feeney, and Dannon Voight for the usage of there pictures.

RIT 08 opening up

11/13 members sweeping the building for Natural Gas and CO levels

Prior to going in service

T14 and T44 in service

Septa R3 vs. Car