Fire Stopped at ‘Wrong’ Street

I was born Dec. 3, 1934, to Emma G. Elwell (Cape May Library is dedicated to her) and J. Oliver Elwell (meeting room in the Cape May Firehouse is named after him). 
Every December we, as a family, went out into the woods and cut down a cedar tree. My father, being a carpenter and firefighter, would make sure it was tied up and in a bucket of water. 
As a treat, he would buy a box of Whitman Sampler chocolates.  Then he would sit on the couch and be the pointer, showing us where a ball was missing.
One Christmas Eve, about 10:30, the fire alarm blasted five which meant out of town. We didn’t have all the technical things they have now, so my father went up to the firehouse. 
Two men stood there. One to tell everyone where to go, the other needed a ride. The man said the Wildwood Boardwalk was on fire. He drove across the bridge with his blue light on. He did not have to pay, but on the way back with the light off, he had to pay twice.
Upon arriving, he found the fire chief and asked him where he should go. He was told the name of the street. A short distance away was the street.
They looked down and saw all the houses on one side were on fire.  The houses on the other side were starting to blister.
My father said, “We have lost the houses on the right but keep the houses on the left wet.” 
A hotel on the end of the boardwalk was in flames and just imploded. More and more men saw my father down there with his back to the fire. They figured if he was down there they had better get down there. That was where the fire had stopped.
Several weeks later, he saw the fire chief. He asked my father why he was down there and, of course, my father said, “That’s the street you told me to go to.”
Apparently, there were two streets with names that sounded alike but with the roar of the wind and sirens; he went to the wrong street. That was where the fired ended.
I was about 10-years-old, and my father arrived home at 8 a.m. Christmas.
McGann writes from Villas.