Antique Home Heavily Damaged By Early Morning Fire
Two people were displaced and an antique home was heavily damaged by fire early Sunday morning.
Fire within the residence was reportedly “well involved,” with flames showing through the rear roof, when the first firefighter arrived at 153 Boggs Hill Road at 5:54 December 28.
The online assessor’s database shows the house as a circa 1900 Colonial with 3,300 square feet of living space.
All five of Newtown’s companies were dispatched to the property, which is within Dodgingtown Volunteer Fire Company’s district on the southern side of Boggs Bill Road between the intersections with Palestine and Mt Nebo roads.
DVFC Captain Steven Osmolik was among the first to arrive on the scene. He took command upon arrival. He located the homeowner, the homeowner’s son, and the one dog in the house, who had all made it out of the house safely and without injury.
The main body of the house “is probably going to need a lot of renovations. The garage and master suite area has a lot of smoke damage,” he said. “The other side of it — the kitchen, and the back half of the house — is gone, unfortunately.”
The fire also damaged siding on the west side of the adjacent house at 151 Boggs Hill Road.
Firefighters had multiple challenges in battling the blaze. Osmolik said approximately 40 firefighters responded to the scene.
Before the first fire truck arrived, propane tanks on the east side of the house started to release their contents, becoming a priority.
“There were four 120-gallon tanks there,” Osmolik said. “At least two started to release heavily into the air, putting more fuel to the fire.”
Firefighters immediately focused two hand lines on those tanks, according to the captain.
Once that area was controlled, firefighters began “an aggressive interior attack,” Osmolik said.
At one point the power lines from the home came off the residence and landed on one of the fire trucks, a pumper, in the driveway.
“We told Eversource to get that resolved as quickly as they could,” Osmolik said. “They had a tech out there on scene already, but he had to go around to get his truck to where he could address that line.
“It took a few minutes, but once he was able to kill power we went back to work. It was a little nerve wracking, having those power lines drop on top of us,” he added.
Despite a snowstorm that dropped 7½ inches of precipitation on Newtown during the Friday-Saturday overnight, roads were clear as first responders began arriving Sunday morning.
“The Town Highway department is good at keeping the roads clear, so they were clear until we had to start putting water on the fire,” Osmolik said.
Very low temperatures created issues with water, however, including one truck that had an issue with freezing and needed to be replaced with another for water supply, “but we got that back under control quickly,” Osmolik said.
Tankers shuttled water to the scene, with drivers using three different locations on nearby Hattertown Road to obtain water.
Water from the firefighting efforts created icy conditions in the driveway, around the house, and on Boggs Hill Road. A Public Works truck was called out to put salt down.
Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps also responded to and staged at the scene, per structure fire protocol. There were no injuries to any of the home’s inhabitants nor firefighters, according to Osmolik.
Mutual aid was provided by Bethel, Monroe, Redding, Southbury, and Stepney. Those companies provided tankers to the scene and coverage of Newtown’s stations during the call.
The American Red Cross was called in to work with the men who were displaced by the fire.
An Eversource truck and a team from JP Maguire were still on scene mid-Sunday morning.
The cause of the fire had not been determined when firefighters finished clearing from Boggs Hill Road around 9:45 am, Osmolik said. The fire marshal’s office was still investigating, he said.
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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.
