Flames engulfed a two-story Boscawen, N.H., home around 9:30 p.m. Monday, killing an elderly man who was asleep on the second floor.
The other three individuals in the house escaped, along with three of their dogs. A fourth dog could not be located and was presumed dead.
Gary Bailey, 48, who lives in the home owned by his family at 14 Gage St., identified the deceased man as his friend, Ron Fowler, whom he estimated was in his seventies.
Bailey said he had known Fowler for 15 to 20 years and that Fowler had lived in the home for about five years.
“He’s a really good guy,” Bailey said.
Bailey and the two other survivors, who were a couple who had been visiting, said they smelled plastic burning and then saw an eruption of flames. They did not know what had caused the fire.
The fire quickly gutted the house and adjoining garage. An hour after the fire started, a ladder rested against a second-floor window on the left side of the house where Concord’s Tower 1 had entered the home in search of Fowler.
The firefighters retrieved Fowler and performed CPR, according to bystanders.
Marc Richards, 46, said he was sleeping on the first floor of the home when he was awoken by his wife. At first, he said he saw nothing.
“Then other people came running in,” he said. “They told us the house was on fire and then it all filled with smoke.”
“People don’t know how fast it goes,” Richards added.
For Bailey, who has lived in the house for 35 years, the fire was a tragedy on top of a tragedy. His mother passed away last month.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Bailey said through tears, as he sat on a neighbor’s lawn in sub-freezing temperatures, watching smoke billow from the window where firefighters had attempted to save his friend. “I don’t know where I’m going to live.”