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Asbury Park firefighters spent more than two hours fully extinguishing a blaze when a tractor trailer filled with laundry from Hospital Services, Inc. [HCSC] caught fire Saturday night while it was parked on Langford Street.

The Asbury Park Fire Department received a call Saturday at 10:02 p.m. about a fire that had broken out near the intersection of Second Avenue and Langford Street, according to Fire Chief Kevin Keddy. When they arrived on the scene they found a tractor trailer “well involved in fire,” he said.

Firefighters had the blaze, which affected the front portion of the trailer and as well as the rear tires of the truck, under control within 20 minutes but spent about two and a half hours working to make sure it was fully exhausted, he said.

“The problem was it was loaded with laundry,” said Keddy.

HCSC, formerly Keystone Laundry, is a processing plant that handles laundry and linen services for nearby healthcare companies and hospitals. It is located on Memorial Drive between Second and Third avenues.

Firefighters had to cut open the front end of the trailer to access the blaze which had melted together the large plastic bins the laundry is stored in for ease of loading and unloading, according to Keddy.

“Guys had to cut into the side of the trailer to pull clothes out by hand and had to cut into the [plastic] bins as well” he said. “It was a big mess, really labor intensive.”

The cause of the fire was still not determined by Sunday evening but “does not appear to be suspicious,” Keddy said.

Both the Asbury Park Fire Department and Monmouth County Fire Marshall’s office are conducting the investigation. No injuries have been reported in connection with the incident.

[Photo at top provided by Asbury Park Fire Chief Kevin Keddy.]

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