The incident was quickly contained to a second-floor apartment in the B Building at the complex.
By Matt Skoufalos | November 30, 2023
First responders at the scene of an apartment fire in Collingswood. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.
One person sustained minor injuries, and several others were evacuated from the Parkview Apartments in Collingswood after a fire on the second floor Thursday afternoon.
First responders from eight local fire companies — Collingswood, Audubon, Cherry Hill, Gloucester City, Haddonfield, Oaklyn, Pennsauken, and Westmont — arrived at the complex on Collings Avenue and the White Horse Pike when the incident reached an all-hands fire call at 1:23 p.m.
Collingswood Fire Chief Geoff Joyce said that one person sustained an impact injury from the origin of the fire, but declined treatment or transportation from the scene.
No other residents were displaced as a result of the fire, Joyce said.
The incident was brought under control quickly by firefighters at the scene, who stretched a hand line from the interior building suppression system, and knocked out windows in the apartment unit to ventilate it.
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Some residents said they were stunned by the speed with which smoke from the fire extended throughout the building.
Rasheem Hall, who’s lived on the seventh floor of the B Building for two years, said he opened the door to his apartment after hearing the alarms and saw the hallway filled with smoke.
He retreated to the stairwell, which was similarly filled with smoke, and then finally evacuated through another set of stairs on his floor, and out the building.
“That’s the first time I’ve been that close to a fire,” Hall said. “It was really heavy smoke. It was hard to believe when I was in the hallway.”
Joyce said that mobile ventilation units would be working through the afternoon to help clear the building of smoke.
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