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Four years later, few clues in Camden fires

Sitting on the porch of his Camden rowhouse, James DiClemente recalled the night of June 11, 2011. Someone rapping on the front door awoke him around 2:30 a.m. A fire was raging in the vacant former garment factory across the street.

James DiClemente remembers the June 11, 2011, fire that destroyed a former garment factory on Winslow Street. He is unhappy that the site remains a litter- and weed-infested lot four years later. (ED HILLE/Staff Photographer)
James DiClemente remembers the June 11, 2011, fire that destroyed a former garment factory on Winslow Street. He is unhappy that the site remains a litter- and weed-infested lot four years later. (ED HILLE/Staff Photographer)Read more

Sitting on the porch of his Camden rowhouse, James DiClemente recalled the night of June 11, 2011. Someone rapping on the front door awoke him around 2:30 a.m. A fire was raging in the vacant former garment factory across the street.

DiClemente, now 60, said he ran outside and knocked on neighbors' doors to gather them in a nearby street as the fire threatened homes.

The memory of that frantic night comes back when he looks onto what is now a weed-infested lot full of trash, bugs, and rodents.

The fire on Winslow Street, in the Waterfront South neighborhood, was one of three at former industrial sites in Camden in a 10-day period that month, displacing residents, destroying houses, and stirring alarm among residents and officials that a serial arsonist was at large.

The two other sites were a former tire company on Chestnut Street in the Gateway section, a blaze that also destroyed neighboring houses, and an abandoned detergent factory on Federal Street in the Marlton section.

Four years later, there have been no arrests, cleanups are incomplete, and the owners of the sites remain frustratingly elusive.

The blaze at the detergent company was arson, and the causes of the tire and garment factory fires remain undetermined, Chief Fire Marshal Braulio Villegas said last week.

Witnesses and surveillance video have placed a person of interest at the scene of the fire at the detergent company, said Andy McNeil, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. This man drove a 1996 to 2000 teal Plymouth Voyager.

"He has not been identified, and we continue to urge anyone with information about that person's identity to come forward," McNeil wrote Thursday.

Meanwhile, seemingly every night, someone throws another unwanted item on top of the big pile of bricks beside Dale Samuel's home in the Gateway section, where a 12-alarm blaze destroyed the former Reliable Tire Co.

The 46-year-old looks out a side window of his rowhouse near Chestnut and Orchard Street, and sees the junk piling up - TVs, couches, boards, tires, bags of trash.

"You name it, it's back there," said Samuel, whose family moved to the area after the June 9, 2011, blaze.

Last to burn, on June 19 that year, was the abandoned Concord Chemical Co. detergent factory at 17th and Federal Streets. The fire was determined to be arson, but a year later, the case hit a wall, according to the Prosecutor's Office.

DiClemente suspects an arsonist - a smart one with knowledge of the area - also was to blame for the fire at the former Howland Croft, Sons & Co. garment factory. The flames spread too methodically, he said.

Because the former tire factory posed a danger to the community, the city paid $32,000 for its demolition within a year of the blaze.

But the rubble remains. There and at the Concord Chemical sites, the city has been unable to track down the responsible parties to make them pay for cleanups.

"To our knowledge, Chestnut Realty Association [the listed owner] is defunct," Villegas wrote of the tire factory site.

The city has tried to contact the company and sent violation summonses, spokesman Robert Corrales said, but has received no response.

Camden will continue to try to contact the owners, and "if they remain unresponsive, [the city] will take all legal actions necessary to remediate the site and recoup any expenses incurred by the city," Corrales said.

DiClemente, a former city street sweeper now on disability, sat on his porch, passing a ball to his niece's 4-year-old son against the overgrown backdrop of the former garment factory. Some neighbors had noticed at the time of the fire that the building was being used to store building materials and computer monitors.

After the blaze, the building was demolished, Villegas said, with the work paid for by the property owner, E-Zone Management.

Last week, the company could not be reached for comment at the address listed on property records.

DiClemente and his neighbors on Winslow are unhappy with the view from their front porches.

Weeds grow wild on the lot, where a crumbling, graffiti-covered brick wall runs along one side and an industrial tower still stands. Empty soda cans, used pizza boxes, and trashed furniture lie amid the weeds and tall grass.

"We use it as a trash can," DiClemente said. "I'm guilty of it too sometimes."

The grass - which neighbors say is home to swarms of mosquitoes and water bugs, as well as rats, raccoons, and possums - emits a constant hiss.

When Ceaser Ruiz, 45, looks onto the lot from his porch, one word - nasty - comes to mind.

"They should clean it up," Ruiz said. Volunteers started to clean up the property a couple times, he said, but stopped.

The blight here is replicated across the city. Camden has begun an 18-month project to demolish thousands of abandoned buildings, while about 8,000 vacant lots remain.

In the Marlton section, the Concord Chemical site was voluntarily cleared within a year of the fire by Camden businessman Bill Hargrove's demolition company. The city has had trouble contacting its multiple owners as well.

Four years later, residents of the Gateway section are reminded of the Reliable Tire blaze whenever they pass the rubble.

Sometimes trash and bricks spill over into the roadway, Samuel said. He wishes someone would clear the property, but said he does not have much hope of that happening anytime soon.