Firefighters injured trying to rescue victims of deadly fire

UPDATE: Firefighters injured trying to rescue victims of deadly fire
By Michelle Sahn • December 12, 2007

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BELMAR — Local, county and state investigators this morning continued to search for the
cause of the house fire that claimed the lives of a 7-year-old boy and a woman Tuesday evening.


Both victims lived at the 1403 C Street house where the fire broke out around 7:30
p.m., but investigators this morning were also trying to determine the relationship
between the victims and how many other people lived at that home between 14 and 15th avenues.

John C. Rizzitello, the Belmar fire marshal, said the woman and child were found by firefighters on the second-floor of the home, in the vicinity of the bathroom.

"The (firefighters) who actually got to the victims did a tremendous job,''
Rizzitello said. "They had to get themselves up a staircase that was engulfed in flames and down a hallway that was engulfed in flames. The conditions were pretty serious.''

Those firefighters made their way through the burning house carrying between 80 and 100 pounds of gear, he said.

Firefighters from Belmar, West Belmar (Wall), Spring Lake, Bradley Beach and Avon responded to the blaze, which was all but extinguished by 9 p.m.

Three firefighters - two from Belmar and one from Bradley Beach - were injured,
authorities said: one with burns to his face, another with eye injuries and a third with smoke inhalation.

The three firefighters who were injured were among those who tried to rescue the
victims. They were treated and released at the hospital.

Rizzitello said investigators were able to get inside the house Tuesday night, after
about 50 firefighters from the borough and surrounding communities extinguished the blaze. The investigators returned this morning to continue their search for the cause of the fire, which they believe began on the second-floor, he said.

Paul Shappirio, the superintendent of schools in Belmar, said a half dozen
counselors, along with the child study team director, were working at Belmar Elementary School today. The little boy who died was a first-grader at the school and counselors were placed in each of the three first grade classrooms.

He said school officials plan to send a letter home to parents today, letting them
know that the school will be open for anyone who needs counseling.

Neighbors described an intense blaze that engulfed the second floor of the house.

Dovid Fink 17, who lives across C street from the fire scene, said he was reading
last night when he suddenly heard screaming.

Then he heard someone yell there was a fire.

"Flames were pouring out the second story window, and people were coming out'' of the house, Fink said.

His friend dialed 911 and a few minutes later police arrived, followed by fire
trucks, Fink said.

"It was basically only the second story, but there were a lot of flames,.'' Fink
said.

Another neighbor on 15 Avenue, Gary Olivieri, said when he walked down the block last night, the second story of the house was engulfed in flames.

"It's a shame, it really is,'' Olivieri said.

summer rental video 2007 Youtube.com Belmar

I guess this is something to do on a rainy day ? I have no idea what street this is from, but my guess is 14th ave. ..???

Web site designed to foster peace

"Animal house" Web site designed to foster peace
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/1/07
BY KENNETH E. PRINGLE

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It is apparent from the June 23 editorial "Unplug 'animal house' site" that the Press editorial board misunderstands the state's "animal house" statute and the purpose of Belmar's online summer rental map and database, which makes already public information easily accessible.

Belmar's online rental map and database and new BelmarRentals411.com site — all of which were built at no cost to taxpayers — are designed to provide summer tenants, landlords and residents alike with easy online access to information in an effort to reduce quality-of-life complaints and foster peaceful coexistence between Belmar's year-round and seasonal communities.

The number of summer rentals in Belmar has dropped dramatically over the past 17 years, from more than 1,200 in 1990 to about 320 rental units on 249 properties as of this summer. But the surge of new homeowners in Belmar's traditional summer rental neighborhoods has put more homeowners in proximity to rentals, increasing opportunities for friction and causing complaints to increase even as rentals continue to decline.

The objective of our efforts is not to intimidate or harass, but to use the Internet to better educate our summer tenants — a population that turns over every few years — about Belmar's rules and how we enforce them.

The need to provide better information was apparent as members of the Borough Council and I went door-to-door on Memorial Day weekend handing out a welcome letter with information about Belmar's rules. We had an opportunity to meet and speak with many of the renters. Most were only vaguely familiar with the state's "animal house" statute, or even the status of their own rental in the "animal house" process, much less the potentially substantial financial consequences of getting a noise summons if a hearing officer previously has designated their rental to be an "animal house." Even if they never have rented in Belmar before and had no idea their rental is an "animal house," tenants can incur steep costs under the law as a result of what would otherwise be a normal noise summons.

The borough's online map and database make it easy for tenants, residents and landlords to keep abreast of the status of a property under the "animal house" law. All information provided on the map is public. The database tracks only those summonses that affect the status of a rental property under the "animal house" statute, and could result in financial consequences for the landlord or tenants.

The editorial board's criticism that this is somehow discriminatory because homeowners' noise violations aren't also posted online is more appropriately directed to the Legislature, which saw fit to make the "animal house" statute apply only to seasonal rentals. Belmar's Web site, which lists only the Belmar address and not the names of tenants who receive summonses, provides far less information than the police blotter section of this newspaper.

In providing greater transparency, we thought we were following the lead of the Press, which has demonstrated through its DataUniverse project the virtue of making public information easily accessible online. We think the benefits of transparency are especially significant here.

Our database enables tenants to know the status of their rental this summer, and will help them make more informed decisions when it's time to choose next summer's rental. We intend to encourage the tenants in the 90 percent of our rentals who do not get summonses to use this year's lease as a reference so a prospective 2008 landlord can check our database to verify they were good neighbors in 2007.

The database also enables the majority of our summer rental landlords, whose tenants rarely, if ever, cause problems for their neighbors, to avoid being unfairly lumped in with the minority of landlords whose rentals persistently cause problems.

The online database also provides value to our residents, who can use the site to see whether our police are doing their jobs. And prospective Belmar homebuyers can see where Belmar's summer rentals are located and make a more informed decision about where to buy or how much to pay.

This online education effort is only part of a larger, more comprehensive effort by the council, under the leadership of Council President Meredith Brennan, who held a meeting this spring with summer rental real estate agents, bar owners and even taxi owners, to develop a coordinated plan to reduce the friction between Belmar's summer and year-round communities.

Although it's still early in the summer, these efforts already are bearing fruit. The number of noise complaint calls from residents is the lowest ever, and residents in some neighborhoods are reporting their best summer in memory. We hope this trend will hold as we continue to keep our summer rental community better informed about our rules and to work proactively and cooperatively to promote a peaceful coexistence between our summer and year-round communities.

Kenneth E. Pringle is mayor of Belmar.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

Imagine the headline above as a conversation from the 100 block of 14th Ave. As the big holiday weekend arrives, animal houses plan their biggest parties for summer 2007; complete with their own sheriffs officers. Back in the day we could have used some of these sheriff officers on 16th for crowd control at our daytime parties when We rented from Nick Z. One can only ask themself, "What are these guys thinking"?

Belmar Benny happy 4th of july

In it's weekly summer rental newsletter, the back and forth between Belmar and some of this years summer renters on 14th Ave. had me thinking about this clip:

Belmar Summer Rental Newsletter link

This site has some of the most entertaining writing about the summer rental scene in Belmar I have ever read...and its produced by the town of Belmar, don't read this while drinking coffee you might burn yourself from laughing too hard

Belmar Rentals 411

Web site offers info, humor for renters

BELMAR: The borough has unveiled a new Web site called BelmarRentals411.com, which includes information for summer renters and a tongue-in-cheek newsletter written each week by Mayor Kenneth E. Pringle that pokes fun at summer rowdies.

The site includes a "photo of the week," which this week is of a pile of trash that has accumulated on the side of a 14th Avenue summer rental.

Belmar Vacation Rentals

There are some interesting vacation rentals in Belmar for anyone looking