Fire started in the former John R. Evans Co. leather factory, a block-long factory building at North 2nd and Erie Streets in North Camden on a hot summer night, August 23, 1972. Inadequate water pressure, combined with a stiff breeze from the south indicated that there was trouble ahead. The first responding Fire Company, Engine Company 6, sounded the Second Alarm upon arrival.
Fire started in the former John R. Evans Co. leather factory at North 2nd and Erie Streets.Taken from the 3rd Street end of Milton Street, showing the houses on the 2nd Street end already ablaze.Pandemonium in Poet's Row as residents attempted to evacuate. High winds and flying embers, combined with intense radiant heat, created fire storm conditions. Live electrical wires were down and arcing everywhere.Engine Company 3 on the 200 block of Burns Street. Companies often found themselves alone on entire blocks, desperately trying to make a stand while awaiting reinforcements. Engine Company 3 operated alone for nearly half an hour before assistance arrived.Ruins of the original fire building and surrounding neighborhood at Poet's Row, North Camden — the worst conflagration in the history of the Camden Fire Department.Ruins at Poet's Row, North Camden, in the aftermath of the fire.Looking east on the 200 block of Burns Street on the day after the fire.Engine Company 3 stands amid the devastation. Ten alarms, aid from fire departments outside Camden, and over two hundred firefighters worked for eight hours before bringing the fire under control. Forty-two homes and the original John R. Evans factory building completely collapsed; an additional thirty houses were severely damaged. Hundreds of Poet's Row residents lost everything. Although there were scores of injuries to both firefighters and civilians, miraculously all were minor.
