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The Carlyle Court blaze erupted just after 9:15 a.m. and quickly raced through the single-family house where Dolores Bellina lived alone, witnesses and responders told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
“A police officer tried to get in the front door, but the smoke was too heavy,” an emergency responder said of Bellina’s neighbor, Thomas Berta. “We weren’t sure at first if she was in there.”
The fire apparently began in the kitchen, near the front of the house, the source said.
An arcing live wire out front made the task even more troublesome for firefighters, he said.
Bellina’s son, Freddie, is with the sheriff’s office, Another son, Anthony, was with the police department for 20 years before retiring in 2010. Her husband died in 2007. They also had two daughters.
Bellina’s grandson, also named Anthony, currently is a patrol officer with the police department, and was working the desk when this morning’s fire call came in.
The emergency responders included the Moonachie and Wood-Ridge rescue teams, along with local police and firefighters and their colleagues from Carlstadt, East Rutherford and Wallington.
The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Arson squad and the sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Identification were at the scene.
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