Photos: Paterson Retired Firefighters Facebook page
On April 6, 1975, Paterson Fire Capt. Fred Armona was killed in the collapse of the Fourth Christian Reformed Church at Fourth Avenue and East 19th Street.
Box 638 was transmitted at 1:43 p.m. and escalated to a general alarm.
Armona, 56, and several other men were on a hose line when the walls of the wooden church fell outward, sending the roof plunging into the sanctuary.
The church was built in 1911 and the congregation relocated to a site in Wyckoff .
Fire departments from the neighboring communities of Haledon, Prospect Park and Hawthrone provided mutual aid.
Armona was assigned to Engine Company 11, which was located at 97 Grand Street.
On the same day, Paterson firefighters contended with a blaze at an abandoned dye house on River Street, according to a newspaper account.
