Ascutney
Ascutney Volunteer Fire Department Chief Darrin Spaulding said the boy found a cigarette lighter and lit some leaves on fire behind the motel.
“He admitted it,” Spaulding said, adding that state police and state fire investigators were involved in helping to determine the cause. “He told me he found a cigarette lighter and touched some leaves.”
Four of the hotel’s 19 rooms were occupied, said Mike Patel, who owns the motel with his wife, Ragi. According to the Red Cross, which arrived to provide food and water to weary firefighters, four families were displaced.
“Our response is to help those displaced and help them find accommodations,” said Lloyd Ziel, chief communications officer with the Red Cross in New Hampshire and Vermont. “They indicated they needed that help.”
Spaulding said when the first crews arrived from just a mile away after the call came in around 11:30, the brush in a wooded area behind the one-story motel had moved up a small hill and burned along the back of building before it caught the motel’s siding on fire at the south end and spread up the siding and into roof line.
“It was already in three or four rooms and the attic (when we arrived),” he said.
Spaulding said that because the fire stops between the rooms in the peaked roof section had been “compromised over the years,” the fire moved unimpeded in the attic to the north end of the building. Within a short period of time, thick smoke poured from both ends of the motel and through holes cut in the roof. Soon heavy flames were shooting out from several places, engulfing a large section of the structure.
At one point, a massive plume of smoke rose up over the motel, blocking out the sun and casting a large shadow over the fire scene. Other times, visibility along Route 5 was severely reduced.
Aaron Fitzherbert, who owns a business next to the motel, said he called the fire in after a motorist stopped to alert him of the smoke coming from behind the motel. “Within minutes, white smoke was coming out of the peak,” he said.
Homer Sulham lives behind the motel on Martin Street near where the brush fire started.
“We were shopping in Claremont and when I came back and came around the corner I was a little concerned for a moment,” Sulham said.
Spaulding said the flames never crossed the pavement where the Sulhams’ home and others are located. Firetrucks were stationed there all afternoon to ensure the brush didn’t reignite.
Power was cut for about an hour to customers in the vicinity of the fire, including the town offices and Weathersfield Elementary School. The school instituted its “shelter in place” policy that kept students inside, but held a regular 2:30 p.m. dismissal. After school activities were cancelled.
Nearly 20 area departments responded — including some as far away as Walpole, N.H., South Woodstock, Lebanon and Hartford — with about 70 to 80 firefighters helping to battle the blaze.
“We had to fight a 20 mph wind,” Spaulding said regarding the challenge of knocking down the flames.
Getting sufficient water to the site initially proved to be a problem after a nearby 10,000 gallon underground tank was drained.
“There is no water source in town,” Spaulding said.
Water had to be trucked from two dry hydrants in Ascutney and the Sugar River at Plains Road in Claremont.
More than five hours after the call, tanker trucks were still lining Route 5, ferrying water to three portable holding tanks as firefighters continued dousing hot spots.
Spaulding said Monday night that firefighters cleared the scene around 7:30 p.m. and had been bringing water to the site up until then.
“I don’t see a wisp of smoke now,” Spaulding said as he was leaving. “But we will have a crew come back and check on it.”
By late in the afternoon, a backhoe was tearing down what remained of the motel at the north end.
Mike Patel said Monday night it was “too early” to decide what they will do next.
He and his wife have owned the motel for 10 years and completed extensive renovations. The 7,600-square-foot motel is assessed at $337,700 and was insured.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
