It is not believed that the items connected to the drug investigation sparked the blaze, fire officials said.
TRENTON — A two-alarm fire inside a home early today led to a drug investigation after firefighters found several substances inside the house that could not immediately be identified, authorities said.
It is not believed that the items connected to the drug investigation sparked the blaze, Battalion Chief Ron Kosztyu said. Trenton police and the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office were at the house on the 1100 block of Hamilton Avenue before sunrise and into the afternoon.
The investigators, who obtained a search warrant for the house, took out several boxes of evidence and may have been joined by federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency, Kosztyu said. In mid-morning, the fire department’s Hazmat team was sent out.
“They were requested by police to test some unknown, unmarked items in the house,” Kosztyu said.
Firefighters wearing Tyvek suits and masks but no respirators entered the duplex, obtained the samples and tested them on the scene. None of the items tested was found to be hazardous, Kosztyu said.
City police referred comment to the prosecutor’s office, which absorbed Trenton’s Vice Enforcement Unit in July. A spokesperson for the agency could not be reached for comment late today.
A family of six lived in the house, but no one was injured in the blaze, which began around 12:30 a.m. today. Arriving firefighters found heavy smoke and fire in the basement.
“All basement fires are difficult because we’re going down into the fire,” Kosztyu.
Units had some trouble locating the fire’s exact location due to heavy smoke. Six minutes into the call, the battalion chief on scene struck the first alarm, then the second alarm was called a short time later to bring more manpower to the scene. The blaze was under control at 1:49 a.m.
Fire marshal Capt. Mike Fitzpatrick said the blaze was mostly confined to a three-foot high crawlspace in the rear of the basement. Though flames singed the joists supporting the first floor rafters, the fire was kept confined to the basement and did not spread to the rest of house, he said.
The cause and origin of the blaze remain under investigation, Fitzpatrick said, but appear to be unrelated to the drug investigation. The basement was divided with partitions into a bedroom and mechanical room. City inspectors were called out to verify whether that was a violation of the housing code, he said.
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.
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