The cargo ship blaze that erupted Wednesday night at Port Newark and killed two firefighters is expected to burn for several more days as crews work to contain the flames and keep the steel vessel from tipping, officials said.
Veteran firefighters Augusto “Augie” Acabou, 45, and Wayne “Bear” Brooks Jr., 49, died from injuries sustained in the fire. Fellow firefighters, friends and family members remembered both as heroes who loved their jobs helping others.
“They don’t make them like him, he was tough as nails and sweet beyond belief,” firefighter Eddie Paulo, who grew up with Acabou, said Friday.
Roger Terry, Brooks’ uncle, said the 16-year veteran firefighter was like a son to him and a “real-life Superman.”
“Wayne wanted to be a firefighter all of his life. He could have had any job that he wanted in this region, because he liked working with people and helping people,” he said.
The fire initially broke out on Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. when about six cars on the 10th-floor deck of a cargo ship were ablaze at Port Newark, the second largest port in the U.S. and largest on the East Coast. The cause of that fire has not yet been identified; officials with the U.S. Coast Guard said the fire erupted as cars were being loaded on the vessel. As of Friday afternoon, the fire was still burning. But access to the vessel and its layered decks of 5,000 cars remains difficult.
“The heat is extreme, it’s a steel box, so it’s a very complex situation, and you need a very good plan to be able to put firefighters in the vessel to put out these fires,” Gordon Lorenson, project manager at Donjon Marine, which is helping with fire operations said during a press conference Friday. “It’s burning very hot so currently a lot of the decks that are burning and the cars that are burning are inaccessible.”
Lorenson said crews were working to cool down the vessel from the perimeter and keep the flames contained on the top decks of the Grande Costa D’Avorio…
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