By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.net
A 59 year old Grover, let’s call him Mike, was awakened at 5 am on March 3, 2017, when he saw orange lights outside his window. He rents an apartment on Seaview Avenue, nearly adjacent to the Warrington Hotel.
He looked out and realized that fire was coming out of the hotel’s windows. “The fire was roaring out of the Warrington.”
He called 911 at 5:09 am and raced out of his rented apartment. “A wall of fire was coming straight at me,” he said.
His email to Blogfinger said, “It took me 5 minutes to get the cats and my backpack. As I was running out of my door on the northwest side of the 2nd floor hallway the windows of Apartment C (16 feet from me) were shattering from the heat.”
Mike said that he had been worried about the Warrington recently because workers had “removed all the siding and all the sheet rock, which left the building filled with fuel.” He was referring to the bare wood framing which he could see through the building’s windows. “That 4-story empty wooden box was a perfect engine for the fire which shot out of the windows like a jet engine.”
He theorizes that the fire, “which moved extremely fast might have been slowed down somewhat if the siding and sheet rock had not been removed.”
Neighbors had been noticing that 2 or 3 workers would come each day for weeks to remove siding and to work inside the building. I myself had heard the hammering and had seen workers on October 21, 2016, when I went there to see what was going on and to interview a Seaview Avenue home owner about the situation.(see Blogfinger photos).
There was a dumpster on the Lake Avenue side, and they had placed a path from the hotel east to where they could remove their trash around past the La Pierre Condominiums to the street. A permit was in the window on the porch. That was for the limited demolition which was ongoing.
According to Mike, the workers who had been hammering inside the Warrington also “disabled the alarms inside.”
Mike had noticed “squatters” inside the building, so he thinks that a wayward cigarette may have been responsible. But he said that he believed that arson may have caused the conflagration, and he had some other worrisome theories as well which we will not relate at this time. Mike did not mention any explosion.
He told us that he had heard that the owner of the Warrington had given up on the hotel plan and hoped to demolish the building. We have no verification of that, in fact, the Zoning Board of Adjustment secretary told us that the demolition theory was not true.
As expected, Mike is very angry. He feels as if the fire was aimed personally at him, and he believes it could have been avoided. He has already spoken to a Neptune police detective and he is awaiting a call from ATF.
Meanwhile he is staying at the Hotel Asbury which offered assistance to fire victims. 98 people were displaced by the fire according to the APP.
Here is a Blogfinger review of the Warrington’s history. It makes reference to recent fire risk concerns:
Warrington history on Blogfinger
SKYLAR ASTIN AND ESTER DEAN “Since U Been Gone.” From the original soundtrack of the film Pitch Perfect.
Gee isn’t it amazing that the bucket loader that was parked under the Warrington was gone, and why wasn’t there any 6 ft. construction fence around the building.
Why were their
dump trucks at 2 A.M. Sat. morning taking away debris ?
Wassup on 3/8/17: The ATF spokesman told the APP that the OG fire is being looked at by their major-league fire investigation research laboratory in Maryland. Also, participating in the assessment are the following (in addition to the ATF federal agency):
—Monmouth County Fire Marshal’s office, Neptune Township PD, Neptune Township Fire Bureau, NJ State Police Canine Unit, and the NJ Fire Marshal’s Office
You don’t need a graduate degree in conspiracy theory to believe that something more than the usual default explanation of squatters are to blame.
There are really only 3 possibilities:
1. Accidental – from bad wiring, a squatter, etc.
Uninhabited work sites like the Warrington should be securely locked and electricity and gas turned off (at the main) when workers are not present. These sites should be policed regularly and steep fines levied for violations.
2. Intentional – Arson. Arsonists set fires willfully and maliciously to their own property to collect insurance compensation. Most arson cases are motivated by financial gain. Arson may also involve burning another’s property for political reasons or revenge, but I doubt that applies in this case. Arsonists are generally male and young.
3. Intentional – Pyromania. This is a psychiatric problem, an impulse control disorder. Pyromaniacs start fires to induce euphoria. They have a fascination with fire. The pyromaniac may be feeling a lot of tension and setting the fire relieves stress. The pyromaniac is not satisfied setting only one fire. Many pyromaniacs are adolescents, 90% are male. After four major fires in OG in 7 years, one must take this possibility seriously despite the fact that few major fires are caused by pyromaniacs.
Again, thanks to the firefighters; they did a heroic job saving that end of town!
This was a totally preventable disaster. The Township Committee was asked time and again to do something about these fire traps! We have others in town that are just as bad, waiting for a squatter, an electrical spark or a cigarette to burn down another block of our town.
What will it take? The Auditorium to burn; maybe a high death toll next time?
What is the matter with our Township government?
First and foremost, my thoughts go out to the families involved in the recent fire. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now, but hope all ends well for you all. I have never been a part of a blog and don’t follow social media – I guess you could call me “old school”. However, I was directed to this site by the owner of a condo I am currently renting during the off season in Ocean Grove – just a few buildings away from the recent fire. The owner gave my wife and me an opportunity to experience what the OG has to offer by renting, and we recently purchased a home in Ocean Grove as full-time residents.
I am truly thankful to have been given the opportunity to be part of such a historic and beautiful town. Over the past few months I’ve jogged past the Warrington during my daily exercise routine and was always enamored by the building as I passed by. It was a unique building with a strange type of charm. I actually stopped jogging a few times just to stare at it and wonder what story it had to tell. I always wondered what was going on around it, and thought someone was going to be restoring it back to its former glory. Those were my emotions as I looked at the building, not knowing the facts which I have now been exposed to here.
I appreciate all the knowledge I’ve gained through everything I’ve read so far, and have formulated my own opinion on how the Warrington’s story came to an end. As I continue to jog past similar buildings in OG, I’ll look at them from a different perspective now.