(October 11) At 9:04 am a passing motorist on Route 23 observed visible fire from Tony’s Pizza, a landmark restaurant in the Stockholm section of Hardyston Township, Sussex County for decades. Hardyston units arrived to a well involved fire which had already self vented. JTFD#1 was paged for mutual aid. Responding units from Jefferson were Engines 722 and 727, Tanker 723 and Chief 730 (Schmidt) in the Command Unit. Upon arrival, 722′s crew entered the rear of the building in conjunction with operations from Hardyston on the A side of the building, and Franklin on the B side of the building. The 722 team met fire in the attached apartment area on the D side of the building. Due to the large amount of fire in the ceiling area of the apartment JTFD#1 sent a roof team to vent a second hole in the rear of the apartment, which enabled the Hardyston team from the front of the building and the JTFD#1 engine crew from the rear to extinguish the remaining fire. Engine 727 assisted with water supply and 723 stood by to supply water to 722 and the Franklin engine. The building sustained major damage.

(October 1) At 10:50 am on October 1, JTFD#1 and JTFD#2 were dispatched to a residence on Cozy Lake Road in the Milton section, near the Co. 1 substation for a working structure fire. Multiple callers were reporting a working fire at the time of dispatch.
Arriving units found a single story single family home with a well involved fire in an attached garage. First arriving engines took positions on the front lawn of the home to leave the roadway clear for a tanker shuttle operation, as the fire was in a rural area outside of the municipal water supply. Mutual aid tanker support was dispatched immediately by Chief Schmidt who had visual on the smoke from the fire during his response.
The fire had begun to extend to house and across the attic ceiling, charring a large area of the interior of the attic ceiling. Crews made an aggressive attack and upon encountering high heat in the attic of the home, made a quick decision to deploy the FIT-5 device. The FIT-5 was successful in immediately knocking down the fire in the attic ceiling area and reducing the temperature enough for the interior engine crew to enter the attack and knock down the hot spots. The garage was a total loss, but the house sustained mostly smoke and heat damage. This was the second successful use of the FIT-5 in an interior structure fire for JTFD#1; the first time was also the first time the device was used in the state of New Jersey and the first successful deployment in a basement fire in North America.
Units on scene were Engines 720, 722, 724 and 727, Tankers 723 and 714, Milton Ambulance and Jefferson Police with mutual aid from West Milford Companies 1, 2 and 4. Chief A. Schmidt (730) had command
Photos by and copyright Raymond Shattuck, WMFD Co 4, for more photos visit: http://www.wmfd4.org