Fire Rescue News- Officials say arson likely in Hammonton factory fire

Posted: Thursday, October 27, 2011 7:17 pm | Updated: 7:21 pm, Thu Oct 27, 2011.

By LEE PROCIDA Staff Writer pressofAtlanticCity.com

HAMMONTON - Police have determined arson was the likely cause of a fire that destroyed much of a century-old former glass factory Oct. 18.

A lack of any apparent natural cause - along with broken windows that would have allowed entry and a history of ........Continue Reading

trespassing on the property - has local police, the county Prosecutor's Office and federal investigators considering the fire was intentionally set.

"We've ruled out any accidental elements," Hammonton Detective Sgt. Steve Zoyac said Thursday. "But we can't rule out any human intervention."

The town owned what was W. Skinner and Son glass factory on the corner of North Egg Harbor Road and Pratt Street, near the center of town and adjacent to a residential neighborhood.

Police said they have received complaints about vagrants and trespassing youths on the property in recent years. The town had boarded up windows and put up chain-link fencing prior to the fire to discourage that activity.

Zoyac said the building likely would have to be demolished due to structural issues caused by the fire.

The blaze started in a room in the rear of the building's second floor, sometime before 7:45 p.m., and was extinguished about four hours later by several area fire departments, Zoyac said.

The town, the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating the fire.

No one was injured in the fire, and none of the adjacent homes sustained damage from the flames.

The structure dates to the late 19th century. It is a relic of the town's and region's industrial past, and has not been used since the mid-1990s.

The town acquired the building earlier this year through foreclosure, and officials discussed plans for rehabilitating it using grant money and turning it into an office complex or museum.

Those plans still were being developed when the building caught fire, Town Solicitor Brian Howell said.

Contact Lee Procida:

609-272-7227

LProcida@pressofac.com