This image was posted with our March, 2011 story on the Surf Avenue fire. Photo by John Gallagher. Special to Blogfinger. ©
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger
3/3/17. Ocean Grove, NJ. Fires have been problematic in Ocean Grove since its founding. Over the years, many hotels, boarding houses, and homes have been destroyed in town. The fragile wood structures were vulnerable, and whenever a fire would occur, it would spread so fast that it would light up an entire group or even a block of structures. The construction would allow the flames to accelerate from the basement to the roof in just a few minutes.
In Ocean Grove we have an excellent fire department which has developed skills in dealing with our close quarters conflagrations. But the risks in recent winters have been fearsome and disturbing.
Since 2010, we have had 4 major fires, and three of them have occurred in March. Fortunately there were no deaths or serious injuries.
On Saturday, March 13, 2010, the Manchester Inn on Main Avenue, was destroyed. That fire originated in the Inn and resulted in the destruction of 5 nearby homes as well as serious damage to 2 more, plus the Inn. The Inn was supposed to be converted to condos. It was replaced by single family Victorian style houses.
On Friday, March 11, 2011, the Surf Avenue fire destroyed 2 homes on Surf Ave. and seriously damaged 4 homes on Atlantic Avenue. There was a condo building under construction at the time. It was rebuilt. Our reporting questioned the conclusions of the investigation, but we were frustrated in our efforts to get transparency from the County.*
And now, of course, we have the Friday, March 3, 2017 fire that occurred early this morning.
The one significant fire since 2010 that was not in March occurred on Friday, Feb. 9 and was the Main Avenue fire that totaled 50-54 Main Avenue and damaged an adjacent building.
In the first three instances, no suspicious findings were reported by investigators. Usually the fire evaluations are performed by the County Fire Marshall and the County prosecutor’s office.
Our article* in 2011 raised concerns about the trustworthiness of fire investigations in the Grove. Here is a quote from that 10/30/11 BF article with a link to it below.
“It is obvious from recent comments on this website that many people in Ocean Grove have little confidence in the fire investigations conducted by these county offices. So long as public officials keep the facts to themselves, behaving as if they have something to hide, people will naturally be suspicious and distrustful. As they should be.
“If the reason for the seeming laxity of these two investigations is that our fire investigators lack sufficient knowledge of fire chemistry and fire dynamics, then the county should upgrade its standards and give its people more professional training. In the meantime, though, either the county or Neptune Township would do well to engage a skilled team of outside, unbiased professionals to conduct independent, thorough investigations of both those major fires. It’s clear that our own officials lack the will — and perhaps also the ability — to do a credible job. But the public needs answers.”
https://blogfinger.net/2011/10/30/editorial-our-fire-investigators-have-let-us-down/
Now we will probably have a long wait to get results of today’s fire investigation.
Surf/Atlantic Ave. fire: #26, 28 and 30 were demolished. (28 & 30 burned to the ground. All that was left of 26 was the facade, which was knocked down the next day. 24 1/2 and 32 were unihabitable. 32 was back in about a year. 24 1/2 took several years as the owners fought with their insurance company, who wanted to tear it down, however it’s a 13 foot lot and they could not have rebuilt.
My source is me, as I live on this block and lived through this. My house experienced minor water damage and a few cracked windows from the heat. Not enough to file a claim
I would hope that the Monmouth County Prosecutor and the State Attorney General will look into how this was allowed to happen by the Township Committee!
I cannot imagine how terrible it must be to lose your house to a fire, especially when the fire started in a derelict building nearby (not even in your own house.) Fortunately, these major fires did not result in deaths.
Most of us do not live near derelict old hotels “under renovation” but all homeowners may suffer the consequences of these four major fires in seven years:
Real estate – will people still want to move to OG?
Insurance – will everyone’s home insurance increase?
Aesthetics – is OG becoming a continuous disaster area (major fires
and Sandy)? Will it ever be normal (“good old days”)?
Sue: Our reporter in 2011 said, “The fire spread to and destroyed homes at 31 and 33 Surf. Four neighboring homes on Atlantic Avenue – 26, 28, 30 and 32 – suffered severe damage and were either demolished or deemed uninhabitable. Six homes on the two streets sustained minor to moderate damage, as did five vehicles.”
Other than that quote, i cannot verify the facts further now.
We have posted your comment. It seems that the difference is whether 4 or 5 houses had severe damage. In any case, the point was that the Surf/Atlantic fire was horrible and caused major destruction. —-PG
Correction on the 2011 Surf fire: 3 houses on Atlantic were completely destroyed and 2 suffered major damages and another minor damage.
Anything made of wood will have its day one way or another.
Eventually new structures will be built with newer material, utilities, and fire protection devices. OG of today and of the near future will be different.
That was awfully close to my beautiful old home on Ocean Ave. With all these fires, and all the rebuilding of faux-Victorians in their place, it’s going to lose everything that makes it so unique.