‘A’ Building residents evacuated the building while first responders ventilated it for smoke.
By Matt Skoufalos | May 21, 2024
Above: smashed windows from a fire at Parkview Apartments Collingswood. Below, a Gloucester City firefighter manages water pressure to the building from his pumper truck. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.
An apartment fire at the Parkview Towers Collingswood displaced “A” Building residents for more than two hours on a warm Tuesday afternoon.
Thankfully, it was extinguished in short order, and “without incident or injury,” Collingswood Fire Chief Geoff Joyce said.
Firefighters were dispatched by a building alarm at the apartments at 3:43 p.m., Joyce said.
When they arrived to discover smoke on the third floor, the call was upgraded to a working apartment fire.
That brought an all-hands response from eight additional fire companies in the area: Audubon, Cherry Hill, Gloucester City, Haddonfield, Mount Ephraim, Oaklyn, Pennsauken, and Westmont.
Firefighters stretched hand lines within the building to extinguish the apartment fire, while pumper trucks managed water pressure from the rear parking lot.
Windows on the third floor showed evidence of their work, with glass shattered and windowframes smashed out; scorch marks on the ceiling were visible from the exterior of the property.
The occupant of the apartment evacuated unharmed, Joyce said; one person was transported from the scene by medical personnel for anxiety unrelated to the fire.
Firefighters check in with Collingswood Fire Chief Geof Joyce at Collingswood Parkview. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.
Miguel Otero, who lives on the second floor of the building, said his family evacuated as soon as they heard the fire alarm.
Other residents said the size of the fire was quickly apparent to them by the volume of smoke they encountered as they fled the building.
Parkview resident Christina Jackson said the staircase was smoky and “smelled really bad” as she descended from the fourth floor.
Collingswood firefighters ventilate the A Building at Parkview Apartments after a fire. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.
Tiffany Davis, who evacuated her family from the seventh floor, said her apartment had filled with smoke from the lower floors, and it only got worse as she climbed down.
“Each step, each floor was filled with smoke already,” Davis said.
After the fire was subdued, fire companies turned their attention to airing out the building, as residents paced the grounds, waiting for the all-clear to return to their homes.
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