Residents homeless after apartment fire

By: centraljersey.com
PLAINSBORO – A fire on Pheasant Hollow Drive early Tuesday morning forced a family of five to leap to safety from a balcony and displaced the residents of 12 apartments, according to police.
Police said they received a 911 call at 4:39 a.m. reporting a structure fire on the 1800 block of the road and arrived to see fire in the front door of an apartment on the second floor. Police began to evacuate the adjacent residences and were soon told that one family that had become trapped in its apartment after the blaze spread into the breezeway and blocked the path through the front door, according to a police report.
Police said they directed the four females and one male, ranging in ages from 14 to 79, to jump off the 13-foot-high balcony into the arms of other officers. The five were treated for minor smoke inhalation by the Plainsboro Volunteer Rescue Squad but refused further medical treatment, police said.Soon after police arrived, they were joined by the Plainsboro Township Volunteer Fire Department, who began to put out the flames, which had entered the attic and spread to several other apartments. They were assisted by other fire departments from the following districts: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Station 66, Cranbury, Monroe No. 2, East Windsor, Princeton Junction, Princeton, West Windsor and Kingston. Fire departments from Hightstown and Lawrence provided standby coverage, police said.
West Windsor Emergency Services and the Princeton First Aid Squad assisted the Plainsboro emergency medical workers, police said, though no serious injuries were reported. One Plainsboro firefighter reportedly suffered minor back pain after falling 6 feet off a ladder, and one of the rescuing police officers suffered a minor back injury under the weight of one of the victims who had to jump to safety. Both were taken to the University Medical Center at Princeton for evaluation and later released, police said.
The Plainsboro Township Fire Marshal and police investigators are probing the exact cause of the blaze, which police said is believed to be accidental. Police said the fire was probably the result of an ashtray being discarded into a plastic garbage container in a kitchen in one of the apartments. That apartment’s occupant told police she woke to the sound of smoke detectors sounding in her apartment and then alerted neighbors, who dialed 911.