Nov. 30, 2001 – A fire early Friday morning at a Cruz Bay apartment remains under investigation, according to Fire Services Lt. Ashmore Hyndman.
"One bedroom upstairs was completely involved when we reached the scene," Hyndman said. He said the one person living in the apartment escaped unharmed.
He said a total of five fire trucks, three from the Cruz Bay station and two from Coral Bay, responded to the 4:08 a.m. call. The last truck to arrive, however, slipped off the road when the driver tried to navigate past cars parked along the edge of the narrow road to the building.
Deputy Fire Chief Brian Chapman issued a reminder Friday to the public to "please keep the narrow roads clear of vehicles." He said while he understands that vehicles need a place to park, their presence on the side of a road can make it impossible for emergency vehicles to pass. Fortunately, he said, the fire truck that slid off the road was the last to reach the scene.
In order to get the other fire trucks back out after the fire was contained, Fire Services called on trucks from Penn Trucking to push abandoned vehicles far off the road. A piece of heavy equipment called an excavator, borrowed from a construction project at The Marketplace, was used to get the fire truck back onto the road.
