Pocono News Section

East Stroudsburg Fire Too Close to Home

East Stroudsburg Fire Too Close to Home - Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 4:04PM EST

Reported by: Laurie Monteforte
Tuesday, Nov 11, 2008 @ 04:04pm EST
EAST STROUDSBURG - Firefighters are breathing big sighs of relief in East Strousdsburg after fire struck a little too close to home.

Fire broke out at the former Cooper Industries building Monday.

The 911 dispatcher alerted emergency workers Monday - fire in East Stroudsburg.

"Smoke coming out of the doors, eaves, vents," said East Stroudsburg Fire Captain Joe Totero.

The call sounded typical until the dispatcher gave the address on Burson Street. The East Stroudsburg Fire Department was getting ready to move into that building.

Fire Chief Billy Miller said, "I'll tell you what, it gets the old heart pounding and you're going out to get in that truck and get going because you know that this is your future site and you don't want to lose your future site."

Luckily, a fire wall protected the construction so the space was spared.

"We had a chance we could've lost it if it would've been any worse," said Miller.

With that worry out of the way, the firefighters still had a big job to tackle. Smoke poured from the building. Totero described it as, "Very acrid, very intense. It does burn your nose."

It was hard for them to find their way around because the place is about 100 years old. It's been renovated several times and has been home to multiple businesses. But eventually they found where the fire started.

Miller said, "Somebody winterized their camper and was storing it there for the winter."

The camper somehow caught fire. It turns out melting plastic and rubber caused most of the smoke.

"It wasn't as bad as we first expected it to be," said Miller. And the Chief expects to move into the new firehouse as planned - next summer.

He said, "We're still good to go."

Firefighters had to bring in giant leaf blowers to get all of the smoke out of the building. The chief thanks all of the surrounding boroughs who allowed his department to use their machines.