From the Linden City Fire Chief

-----Original Message----- From: bwill@charter.net [mailto:bwill@charter.net]
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 3:59 PM
To: Curtis St.John
Subject: Our Community says thank you Approximately 1 year ago we closed the streets of downtown Linden with the assistance of 3 other departments. We practiced this incident hoping that someday it would not come to a reality. The exercise surfaced numerous obstacles that included water supply, overhead high voltage power lines above the alley and the facts of a 100+ year old building. Unfortunately the problems were x 4.
The community at large, City officials and the Linden Fire Department would like to give their gratitude and thanks for the overwhelming response to our incident on Friday.The task of trying to contain a historical building of this size with exposures involved was amazingly contained without any further damage to other nearby historical buildings.
I am proud of the way our County coordination system works, the number of firefighters, apparatus and equipment that was in one form or another involved in this incident. Each time another obstacle arose, someone stepped up and solved the issue to ensure the safety of our firefighters and protection of the buildings nearby.
There is no question that without this system and experienced personnel the loss of history would have been much greater.
Thank you again, to the endless list of people and businesses that participated in this overwhelming event.
Brian Will,
Fire Chief Linden City Fire Department