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| Photos: dvrbs.com |
Camden, New Jersey, was the scene of a conflagration that devoured factories, homes and automobiles on July 30, 1940. Ten people died in the flames and a firefighter suffered a fatal heart attack.
Firefighters manned an estimated 28 hand lines with 1-inch or 1-1/8-inch tips, a ladder pipe with a 1 1/2-inch tip and three turret nozzles with 1 3/4-inch tips mounted on hose wagons at the height of the inferno, according to the NFPA Journal.
A series of explosions at the R.M. Hollingshead Corp. - which manufactured a variety of flammable liquids used in the auto industry as well as soap and insecticides - preceded the fire.
``The weather at the time of the fire was almost ideal for a conflagration,'' according to the NFPA Journal said. ``The temperature reached a peak of 94 degrees during the fire and averaged 85 degrees for the entire day. A fifteen to twenty-one mile per hour southwest wind was blowing.''
The United Press reported: ``Hoselines were stretched more than a quarter-mile to Cooper River where high-powered pumpers relayed water to the burning paint factory. Police cars were dispatched through the streets of this city of 120,000 with men on the running boards crying to householders to turn off their water so that the city's entire reserve could be placed at the disposal of the fire-fighters.''
Box 61 at 9th and Penn Streets was transmitted at 1:15 p.m. following the explosion. Box 184 at 11th and Cooper Streets was pulled two minutes later. A fourth alarm followed at 1:39 p.m., according to website dvrbs.com. Philadelphia sent Engines 8, 17, 21, 27, 33 as well as Trucks 9 and 23 after a call from Camden Mayor George Brunner. Philadelphia was using two-piece engine companies with hose wagons and pumpers in 1940. Other cities helped too.
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