VERSHIRE — When Lexus Wheatley’s 5-year-old son came into her room to tell her he could smell something burning, she assumed it was coming from inside their apartment.
“It smelled like burning plastic,” she said.
But when she walked outside, she saw smoke escaping from the windows of her downstairs neighbors’ place. When she opened the neighbors’ door, all she could see was black.
Hal Beebe, 60, who suffers from late stage Alzheimer’s, had turned on the stove after his caregiver had left for the day and before his wife, Jodi Beebe, had returned from her nursing shift at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph.
“He had no idea what was going on,” said Wheatley, who is 26.
She led Hal Beebe out of the apartment, with the help of another neighbor, Janet Dow.
The Beebes hadn’t used their stove in years, Jodi Beebe said in a recent interview. At the time of the fire, there was a crack in the glass cooktop that she covered with a wooden cutting board so that her husband wouldn’t hurt himself.
The March 2 blaze destroyed the five-unit apartment building and displaced 10 tenants, said Kevin Blakeman, a Sharon resident who owns the building.
Hal Beebe is receiving treatment for smoke inhalation at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon.
Three of Wheatley’s cats and the Beebes’ Labradoodle died in the fire.
Normally, Jodi Beebe, 59, would arrive home around 8 a.m. after her overnight shift at Gifford, but on the morning of the fire, she was delayed by the response to another fire that occurred along Route 14 in East Randolph the same morning. By then, her husband’s caregiver had left the house to take her son to school, Jodi Beebe said.
While driving, she received a call from a fellow tenant about the fire and sped home using an alternative route.
“I couldn’t even get anywhere near the house when I got there. I wasn’t even looking at the house. I was just trying to find my husband,” she said.
Wheatley said when she attempted to extinguish the fire, both the fire extinguisher in the Beebes’ apartment and an adjacent apartment didn’t work. Eventually, she used her own extinguisher, which had been replaced last year.
Blakeman learned about the fire from tenants who called him that morning. He hurried to the scene, where “there were a lot of firefighters doing what they could do,” he said in a phone interview last week.
“They seemed to work very well together,” he said. “I was impressed.”
Over 20 fire departments and emergency services responded to the incident, including Vershire Fire and Rescue, which responded at 8:53 a.m., according to a post on its social media page. The scene was cleared at 4:46 p.m.
The apartment building, at 9246 Route 113, was valued at $430,000 in 2024, according to town property data. Blakeman said he is awaiting a response from his insurance company after filing a claim.
Wheatley, an events photographer, and her three kids have found an apartment in Orange, Vt. The family lost everything in the blaze, save for Wheatley’s camera equipment, which she’d left in her car after returning from a shoot.
“I’m kind of numb,” she said in a phone interview last week. “I don’t think the full effect of it has hit me.”
As of Monday, a GoFundMe to help Wheatley and her kids was about $600 shy of a $5,500 goal.
“The community has been so wonderful,” she said.
The other apartment units were occupied by Janet and Chris Dow and one of their sons, and another man who lived alone. Two other people who lived in the fifth unit had been recently evicted, but some of their belongings were still in the building at the time of the fire.
Both Dow parents have limited mobility. Chris Dow deals with injuries to his spine and knee that he sustained during his time in the military, while his wife lives with degenerative disc disease that wears away at the cushioning in her spine.
The couple was able to salvage their lift assist and medical chairs from the wreckage, Janet Dow said.
The Dows have a GoFundMe that’s reached 85% of its $2,600 goal as of Monday. The family is in the midst of moving into a mobile home in Barre after staying with relatives in Lyme.
Moving has been tough given their disabilities, but their sons, friends and relatives have been a big help.
“I have a great support system,” Janet Dow said.
As the Dows settle into their new home in Barre, Jodi Beebe is staying at a hotel in Randolph while her husband remains in the hospital. The hospital is ready to discharge him, but “there is no safe discharge plan for him at this point,” she said, so she wants to keep him at DHMC.
“He’s clearly a danger to himself and others and requires 24-hour supervision,” she said.
Hal Beebe began exhibiting signs of Alzheimer’s around 2020, and Jodi Beebe said she has been trying for the past year to have him enrolled in Medicaid. In the meantime, she’s struggled to keep up with the cost of hiring caregivers, which at some points has cost as high as $1,000 a week.
“I’ve exhausted all my retirement money to pay for his care,” she said.
As of Monday, a GoFundMe for the Beebes has reached 86% of its $5,500 goal.