“I never once thought that when I went out to get the mail that day that it would end up the way it did.”
That’s because Erika Dixon, director of Picket Fence Day Care Center, said she rarely gets the mail when it’s dropped off at her business, located at 36 W. Conti Parkway.
But on the morning of Feb. 6, she picked up the mail and discovered there was a letter addressed to Elmwood Park Chiropractic, located next door. So she decided to go over and drop it off.
She saw two people standing outside the chiropractor’s office, who told her that there was a small fire and that the fire department had been called.
When she saw emergency vehicles coming and parking in front of the building, she knew it was time to take action.
“We need to evacuate right now,” she told her staff.
Dixon said her staff of 10 and 47 children ranging in age from 3 to 6 years old immediately put on their coats and evacuated the building.
“My staff did a phenomenal job,” she said. “The kids looked at it as another [fire] drill.”
But the fire totally destroyed chirpractor’s office, located next door at 35 Conti Parkway.
Elmwood Park Fire Department officials said the cause of the fire may be electrical, but it is still under investigation.
Dixon said they hold a fire drill every month at the nursery school. Once evacuated, the children were taken to the Elmwood Park Parks and Recreation Center, where they stayed while their parents were notified to come get them.
Since the fire was extinguished, Dixon and Picket Fence’s staff have spent several days cleaning up the building. There was no fire damage, but the building did receive smoke damage.
Because of that, many items they used had be boxed up and thrown away. Large fans were being used to get the smoke smell out of the building midday Feb. 10.
“Coming in afterwards and seeing everything, it was like something out of a movie,” she said.
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On the north side of the chiropractor’s office is Spathies Insurance Agency Inc., 34 Conti Parkway, which George Spathies co-owns with his wife. He was praying the whole time the fire was being fought that it would not spread, he said.
“It was an act of God,” he said. “Those flames went over the roof. I prayed and prayed and prayed.”
The week after the fire, Spathies was working out of the office again.
“The fire department did a fantastic job,” he said. “God just guided them.”
Dixon hopes to have the nursery school open and full of children on Feb. 16.