September 28, 2017
Dear JP Mascaro and Sons,
On behalf of the Morris County MUA,
I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to one of your employees,
Keil Klaver who is one of the machine operators at our Mt. Olive Transfer
Station for his heroism in saving our building. Mr. Klaver is not only a Mt.
Olive employee, but also on the Budd Lake Fire Department. In the early hours of
this morning, the Mt. Olive Transfer Station fire alarms went off, first for an
activated water flow alarm at 12:44am. The local Mt. Olive police answered and confirmed
the call and reported heavy smoke coming from the inside of the building. I
received the call around 1:00 am and quickly headed to the transfer station. While
in route Mr. Klaver had called me to inform me that there was a fire call at
work and he was heading in to help fight the fire. I thanked him and informed
him that I was already in route and would see him there.
Upon my arrival,
I could identify two fire companies, Flanders and Budd Lake. I identified
myself to the police officers who were in charge of keeping non-emergent
personnel out. The officers told me to report to incident command where the
Fire Chief and a sergeant of the police department was stationed. I was quickly
briefed of the operation and informed that one of the employees from the
station was on scene. The fire was in a trailer and down in the tunnel where we
load the trailers for shipment of trash to the landfill. There was also another
truck that was in the tunnel, blocking the trailer that was on fire.
Mr.
Klaver jumped into the first truck and moved it out of the way and then went back into the tunnel and drove the
trailer on fire out of the building, saving the building from any damage. The
fire department had their ladder truck set up in place where Mr. Klaver stopped
and they sprayed water onto the trailer from above. Keil then got into the
excavator and opened the back door on the trailer with it and extracted the
smoldering, smoking trash and spread it out in the parking lot for the fire
department to spray foam on it.
It is my
belief that, without Mr. Klaver being a J.P. Mascaro employee, the MUA would have suffered a tremendous
amount of property damage due to the trailer not being able to get out of the
tunnel. I would like to thank your company again for hiring such a hero like
Mr. Klaver is.
Michael Rathbun,
Transfer Station Operation Manager, MCMUA