On the early morning of Jan. 6, a five-alarm fire engulfed three buildings on Madison Street in Ridgewood, displacing 26 families and six kids, some as young as 1 year old, and injuring five different firefighters who responded to the emergency.
According to residents, many were alerted before alarms went off because of their shouting neighbors, and some even awoke to find entire walls within their rooms in flames. That neighborly effort has continued, with the Ridgewood community rallying together, spurred on by local business owners and representatives, to donate over well $70,000 to various fundraisers and hundreds of clothes, shoes, toiletries, food items and much more to the many individuals who lost everything as a result of the blaze.
