CANAAN — A fire that started after a tenant threw ashes from the fireplace into the kitchen trash damaged a three-bedroom home on Canaan Street Lake on Tuesday morning, authorities said.
The two-alarm fire at the waterfront ranch home at 123 Corno Road was reported at 11:27 a.m. when the tenant returned home and found the house on fire, according to Canaan Fire Chief Bill Bellion.
“The gentleman had disposed of ashes from the fireplace improperly, inside the house,” Bellion said. “He thought they were out — he had run his hands through the coals and didn’t find anything hot — and he thought he could do that.”
Firefighters were able to enter the home and get much of the blaze under control by noon, Bellion said, but it caused heavy smoke, fire and water damage, especially to the kitchen and laundry area. “The heat damage inside is extensive,” said Bellion, who said the structure would likely require major renovations to be habitable. Crews departed from the scene around 4:45 p.m.
The ranch home on a half-acre lot was built in 1958 and has an assessed value of $335,000, including the land, according to assessing records. Carol Williams, one of the owners, was at the scene and said her family lives there in the summer and was renting it out in the winter months.
No injuries were reported in fighting the fire, and firefighters from Enfield, Grafton, Lebanon, Hanover and Rumney assisted Canaan at the scene, with Springfield, N.H., providing some station coverage, the fire chief said.
Bellion said the tenant, who was there on a seasonal rental, was “inexperienced” about handling ashes from a fireplace or woodstove.
“This has happened in various forms before,” Bellion said. “People need to be very careful with any kind of fireplace or woodstove ashes.
“They need to be placed outside in a covered container, away from any building,” he said. Bellion recommended putting water on the ashes, too, but to do so outside.
Meanwhile, Hartford firefighters dealt with a brush fire on Red Barn Road in Quechee on Tuesday that was “caused by improperly discarded ashes,” according to a news release from Hartford Fire Chief Scott Cooney.
As they were returning from that scene, his department also was alerted to a separate brush fire caused by downed power lines that caused minor damage to a home at 100 Talbert Street, the Hartford news release said. About 1,000 Green Mountain Power customers were affected.
And the Hartford department received calls around the same time for reported smoke in a Dunkin Donuts on North Hartland Road; a 911 call for a person trapped in an elevator on North Main Street; and a medical emergency on Safford Road, Cooney said. Hartford requested a first alarm and firefighters from Hartford, Lebanon, Hanover, Norwich, and Windsor responded to assist, the release said.
Members of the Hartford Public Works Department also helped at the Talbert Street fire.
“Many thanks for the assistance from our mutual aid partners and Hartford DPW,” Cooney said in the release. “The volume of 911 calls received in this short period of time exhausted the response capabilities of Hartford Fire Department.”
News photographer James Patterson contributed to this report. John Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com or 603-727-3217.