Sharon
Anthony Simpson bent over and picked up a light pink trinket and set it on top of the charred kitchen stove. Not much else was recognizable.
A fast-moving blaze reduced the two-story structure at the end of the rural road to rubble, displacing Simpson, his wife, Amanda, and two children.
The most difficult part about the tragic situation, Simpson said, is that two family pets perished in the flames.
Simpson said he believes the fire broke out between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Monday, not long after the family left for a into town. He suspects a woodstove was the source of the fire.
A dog and a cat were trapped inside, he said.
“The house really isn’t that big of a deal. We’ll build a new one,” Simpson said on Tuesday as he surveyed the destruction with the family’s pet goat Frosty at his side. “But the animals, that’s pretty tough.”
The house, which sits on 80 acres owned by Simpson’s late grandfather, Arthur Owen, is about a mile down a Class IV road off Beaver Meadow, which hindered the fire department’s access. When Simpson arrived at the property around 5:30 p.m. on Monday, he said there wasn’t much left of the home he built with his own hands. The heaviest damage was around the area of the wood stove, he recalled.
Firefighters from Sharon and Norwich responded and put out hot spots, Sharon Fire Chief Jason Flint said. There wasn’t much else to be done at that point.
Simpson didn’t have homeowners insurance. He said he was still in the process of building the home and the cost to insure it was prohibitive.
The Simpsons are temporarily residing at a nearby empty home owned by relatives in Norwich.
“We are really fortunate to have a house right down the street that we can live in for now,” Simpson said. “Most people don’t get that.”
Despite the circumstances, Simpson stayed optimistic about the future. He has lived on that section of land for about nine years, a parcel that sits just across the brook from his grandfather’s former sugaring operation.
The location is off the grid, something Simpson said he very much enjoys.
He hopes to one day get the now run-down sugar house back up and running.
“I told my grandfather when I was 5 years old that I was going to build my house here,” said Simpson, who grew up in Norwich.
This weekend, Simpson said he will start rebuilding.
“We love it here,” he said.
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.