http://www.app.com/article/20120223/NJNEWS/302230033/Fire-Lacey-marina-destroys-5-dry-docked-boats-damages-2-others?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage
LACEY — Five dry-docked boats were completely destroyed and another two boats damaged by an early Thursday morning fire at the Ocean Beach Marina Thursday.
The fire was reported around 1:30 a.m. Thursday by George and Lisa Goins of Whiting, who were spending the night on their dry-docked 35-foot boat, the “Lion’s Den” in the same marina.
Lisa Goins was watching television on their boat, while husband George was sleeping following a full day of work on their 35-foot boat. The electricity went out and when she popped her head out of the cabin, she saw the developing inferno in a boat less than 100 feet away, George Goins said.
“She (Lisa) woke me, and tried to call 911 on her cell, but the cell wouldn’t work. So we got off the boat and went down the street knocking on doors to get somebody to call 911 from their house,” George Goins said as investigators Thursday morning sifted through the wreckage of the five burned-out boats nearby.
“Investigators are going to work through the debris to determine a cause and orgin,” said Executive Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Michel A. Paulhus.
Goins and his wife stayed away from the area as firefighters from Lanoka Harbor, Forked River, Bayville, and Waretown fire companies each arrived on the scene to battle the blaze.
“It was hot. It was real hot. I wasn’t going to hang out for that. From out at the street it looked like the whole marina was on fire,” Goins said.
Goins said firefighters quickly arrived on the scene but that within 10 minutes the fire had spread to the five boats as wind appeared to push the fire from one boat to the next.
Firefighters had the blaze extinguished by about 2:30 a.m., Goins added.
“It’s just amazing how fast it moved from boat to boat,” Goins said.
The five boats varied in length to over 40 feet and were totally destroyed, Police Lt. James Veltri said.
Two additional boats were damaged by the fire, and a nearby utility pole sustained damage as well. There were no injures reported, Veltri said.
All that remained of the five destroyed boats were the charred cinders of three and the burned out hulls of the other two. All of the boats were surrounded by the twisted remains of the boats’ rails.
“It looked like a tenement fire,’’ said Jerry Pepin, a captain with the Lanoka Harbor Fire Co., and one of the first firefighters to arrive at the blaze. “It was pretty impressive.’’
A boater on the scene estimated damage from the blaze at between a half-million and a million dollars, although no official estimates were available Thursday morning.
Goins says the usual procedure for storing a boat for the winter includes filling up onboard gas tanks to about three-quarters full. He estimated each of the boats had a minimum of a 350-gallon tank onboard similar to his own boat.
“You could hear the tanks popping and exploding,” Goins said.
“If those firefighters didn’t get on the job so quickly, we might have lost it all over here,” Goins said before returning to work on his own boat.
A man who identified himself only as Vic came to the fire scene on behalf of his friend, the owner of one of the destroyed boats, to give him a damage report over the phone.
“Your boat is one big cinder,” Vic told his friend. “You can't even tell it was a boat. Sorry.”
Vic said the boat owner, who he would not identify, is upset at the loss.
“His wife loved that boat,” Vic said.
Lacey police, Ocean County fire marshals and the county prosecutor’s office are all involved in the investigation.
