By Ron Leir
Observer Correspondent
HARRISON –
Fire struck again in Harrison this week, this time taking a life.
Harrison Fire Director Harold Stahl said a call came into the dispatch center Monday, April 8, at about 12:30 p.m. reporting a fire in the rear of 209 N. Second St., a two-story residential structure.
Harrison Fire Department units responded, along with fire personnel from Kearny and Jersey City, Stahl said.
“Kearny aided us in ventilation work with their ladder truck and we’re very thankful to them,” Stahl said.
Stahl said the fire was confined to the second-floor rear apartment.
“There were no firefighter injuries but I can confirm there was a civilian fatality,” Stahl said. He dcclined to provide further details.
Because of the death, Stahl said that Harrison “is getting ready to turn over the investigation to the state Division of Fire Safety, along with the Harrison Police Department and the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office.”
Assistant Hudson County Prosecutor Gene Rubino said a neighbor found the victim, a woman in her 70s, lying on a landing outside her secondfloor flat near the kitchen area and called emergency 911. The woman was later pronounced dead. An autopsy is awaited.
