By Walter Elliott
EAST ORANGE – It took minutes for a fire here at 161 Prospect St. early July 22 to alter the living arrangements of up to 80 residents, injure five firefighters from among six responding departments and delay the commutes of hundreds of bus riders.
Investigators from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Fire, Homicide and Major Crime Task Forces began a continuing investigation of the fire’s cause once the eight-hour, three-alarm blaze’s last hotspots had been quenched.
A second investigation by the city’s fire and building inspectors is also underway on whether The Villa – a four-story, 44 unit built in 1917 – can be salvaged or needs to be demolished.
For the family of the late Cherry A. Davis, however, their lives have been forever altered.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and East Orange Chief of Police Phyllis Bindi announced on July 26 that Davis, 69, had died in the fire.
Davis’ funeral arrangements have not been announced as of press time. A GoFundMe.com page was established July 26 for her and the family’s expenses.
Residents who talked with reporters said that they were awakened to the smell of smoke, popping sounds and flames from the back of the building at 12:30 a.m. Friday.
Those who tried to use the rear fire escape found it engulfed in flames. They either ran down the stairwell; a few chanced on riding the elevator down.
“Around 12:30 my mother was yelling and asking if anyone was cooking in the kitchen,” said daughter Natasha Davis. “I said ‘No,’ proceeded out of my room and saw smoke.”
Davis said he rolled her wheelchair mother in a room for safety, took her son and they ran downstairs from their third floor apartment outside.
The Davises and other residents were immediately met by arriving East Orange Fire Department members. The firefighters would be joined at the scene by colleagues from Montclair, Nutley, Bloomfield, Newark and a South Orange fire engine from the newly-formed South Essex Fire Department.
“I told them my mother’s on the third floor,” said N. Davis, “and please get here the first chance you can.”
Firefighters were in for a long pre-dawn battle. Intense flames from the fourth and third floors partially collapsed the roof and reignited itself as it spread.
Television news viewers in the metropolitan New York City area turned on their sets to see fire hoses from Montclair and Nutley ladder trucks dousing the fire from above the fourth floor. A third ladder truck, from EOFD, was attacking the blaze from the north side.
Then there was what would be a five-day-long heat wave. Heat exhaustion, among minor injuries, sent five firefighters to two local hospitals for same-day treatment.
Firefighters, before dawn, gained entry to the building and found C. Davis unconscious. She was rushed to Newark’s University Hospital.
“Our fire chief (acting chief Bruce Davis, Jr.) saw what was going on to our firefighters,” said Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green, “and made sure they had relief.”
Davis, Green and OEM Coordinator David Williams had the East Orange School District open the Edward T. Bowser Elementary School as a temporary shelter. Members of the local American Red Cross chapter began processing the displaced for housing and related needs.
“David Williams, our OEM coordinator, made sure he secured a place to go,” added Green, “made sure we had an engine out here for the families to have water, beverages – things of that nature.”
A Red Cross spokeswoman said that 44 people among 11 families had found temporary housing by 11 a.m. with seven families to go.
Commuters on NJTransit’s Morris & Essex railroad line, while passing or stopping at Brick Church Station, saw smoke dwindle to a relative wisp by 9 a.m. The smoke, however, can still be smelled from a two block radius.
East Orange Police officers had long closed the intersection of Prospect Street and Park Avenue by then. Drivers on NJTransit’s No. 41 and 94 bus routes were detoured along Lincoln Avenue, passing the Bowser school for the entire weekend. (DeCamp’s No. 88 route remains suspended since the COVID-19 pandemic’s outbreak.)
The EOPD School Crossing Guard, normally directing Costley/Healy/Truth middle school complex traffic, found herself pulling double duty at Lincoln and Hamilton streets. The Garland Jackson Academy on Prospect Street was closed for summer maintenance.
Many responding vehicles were occupying Prospect’s two blocks into Park Avenue plus parts of the avenue itself. They included vans from two building cleanup companies, seven from TV news stations, a PSE&G utility truck and four ECPO Crime Scene Investigation Unit vehicles.
The county investigation cars were initially there to determine whether the fire was caused by arson as a standard operating procedure. Initial findings have traced the fire to one or two late model minivans that were parked in 161 Prospect’s rear parking lot.
How the first minivan caught fire is unknown as of press time. Both vans had been parked with their rear ends under the first floor’s fire escape balcony, sending flames up the building.
Two citizen video recordings have surfaced, showing the rear of The Villa catching fire.
Those county investigators, at 10:10 a.m., were informed by University Hospital and their administrators that C. Davis had died.
The Villa’s owner, Zel Properties, LLC, had bought it for $1.3 million in 2007. It is managed by Benjamin H. Realty Corp., of East Orange.
