The victim at today’s fire at 422 Forest St., Kearny, has died.
Fire Chief Steven Dyl said Kevin Olsen, 65, was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital’s Burn Unit in Livingston.
Dyl said the first call of fire came in at 11:50 a.m. A second alarm was declared at 11:56 a.m.
The victim was found on the floor of a first-floor room.
It wasn’t easy, Dyl said, to get Olsen out of the building because of a narrow hallway. Firefighters had a hose line inside to knock the fire down in the hallway that was estimated to be about 5-feet wide.
Once Olsen, who was home alone, was brought outside, EMS officials decided the best course of action was to fly him, by chopper, to St. Barnabas.
“The guys on scene did everything they could to help Mr. Olsen,” Dyl said.
Firefighters also helped to remove eight dogs from the home.
One died of cardiac arrest at the scene. Three were treated with oxygen and survived. Four others were not injured. The seven surviving dogs were transported — by animal control and by the Kearny Police Department — to the Arlington Dog & Cat Hospital on Passaic Ave., Kearny.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, Dyl said.
We’ll have the full story in the Dec. 6, 2017 edition of The Observer.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, a place where he has served on and off since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on Facebook Live, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to West Hudson to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.