Fire Damages House On Cannon Drive

By Andrew Gorosko

Firefighters from four volunteer fire companies responded to a house fire at 23 Cannon Drive early Monday morning, which caused an estimated $60,000 in property damage, according to Fire Marshal George Lockwood.

A smoke detector sounded, alerting the four members of the Ladestro family to the 3 am fire, allowing them to get out of the single-family house without injury before the white smoke got heavy, the fire marshal said. The family, a husband and wife and two young boys, went to a neighbor’s house, as firefighters battled the blaze, Mr Lockwood said.

The fire call came in as a chimney fire, but it proved to be more serious than that, he said.

An improperly constructed fireplace in the family room had allowed a fire to start in the south wall of the building, Mr Lockwood said. There had been a fire in the fireplace the night before, he noted.

Firefighters from Dodgingtown, Hawleyville, Newtown Hook and Ladder, and Botsford went to the scene. About 30 firefighters responded.

Mr Lockwood said the blaze “was going for quite a while” in the wall before it was discovered._ Studs in the wall and a horizontal beam above the fireplace had ignited, making it a very difficult blaze to extinguish, he said.

Firemen used power chisels to laboriously take apart the fireplace brick by brick and boulder by boulder to get at the stubborn seat of the blaze within the wall. The power chisels, similar to jackhammers, are powered by compressed air. Firemen then took apart the wall to get at the blaze.

Mr Lockwood attributed the accidental fire to an improperly built fireplace. Heat generated by fires in the fireplace across time had dried out combustible materials in the wall which eventually ignited when conditions were right, he said.

Damage was limited to about a 100 square-foot area in the one room, he said. Firefighters limited the amount of water used on the blaze to curtail water damage, he said.

The Ladestros would be able to move back in by the end of the week after cleanup work was done, Mr Lockwood said. The house and its contents are insured against fire damage, he said.

Firemen were at the scene until 7:30 am Monday. Cannon Drive is a dead end street off Birch Hill Road.