Acting Deputy Chief Joseph Redden said the fire started in shelving in a stockroom of the North Jersey Secretarial School. It was brought under control in 10 minutes and caused more smoke than damage, Redden said.
No classes were in session at the school at the time. The only person in the office, a staff employe who declined to give her name, remained until fireman arrived. An aerial ladder was raised to the seventh floor, but most of the firemen used the building's elevators and extinguished the blaze with hoses attached to inside hydrants.
Although there was no threat to other offices in the building workers on some of the upper floors said they were advised to leave as a precautionary measure.
But a window washer, strapped to a safety belt on an eighth floor ledge directly above the site of the fire continued to scrub away through all the excitement.
The dense smoke pouring from the windows of the secretarial school attracted throngs of office workers and shoppers. Fire apparatus surrounded the building minutes after the alarm was turned in and traffic in Broad St. and adjacent side streets was blocked.
Police and fire men rerouted southbound traffic to Halsey St. a block west of Broad and north-bound traffic to Park Pl on the east side of Military Park.
The Wiss Building, a 10-story store and office building, is near W. Park St. opposite the southern tip of the park.
Fire Engine 5 was delayed briefly on the way to the fire by a collision with a refrigerated milk truck at Raymond Blvd. and McCarter Hwy. The fire unit, going west on the boulevard, was struck in the rear by the milk truck coming out of McCarter.
The impact knocked off some equipment which firemen quickly retrieved.
The driver of the milk truck, Lester C. Walker of Flemington, said he was passing on a green light when he heard the sirens and did not have time to stop. No one was injured. The truck is owned by Johanna Farms of Flemington.