By Joseph Edgerton
Staff Writer

This home at 286 Addison Road in Goffstown destroyed a two-family home on Thursday, Jan. 5, causing a half-million-dollar loss. The fire started through a crack in the chimney. (Courtesy Photo)

The first fire of the new year in Goffstown resulted in nearly $500,000 of damage and forced a family out of their home.

Deputy Chief Mark Hurley of the Goffstown Fire Department said the owners of a home at 286 Addison Road called in the fire at 2:43 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 5.

"We were dispatched at 2:43 from all three stations, and the first unit on scene was Engine 6 at 2:55," he said. "It appears there was a failure in the fireplace. The owners of the house thought it was a chimney fire."

The fire began in the attic of the home after it escaped the chimney through a crack in the bricks, Hurley said. The flames spread quickly through the top of the house, a two-family structure with one unit vacant.

Firefighters from Goffstown, Bedford, Litchfield, Manchester, Weare, Hooksett, New Boston and Dunbarton responded to the three-alarm fire. The fire was contained within the hour and the last units left the scene at 8:40 a.m.

Call and full-time firefighters, 22 in number, responded from Goffstown.

"Manchester, New Boston and Dunbarton assisted in covering the station," said Hurley. "Six firefighters entered the building, but as the ceiling collapsed, we switched to an exterior attack. When the building collapsed, we focused on the interior. The fire had a good head start."

Hurley said neither the weather nor the construction materials of the house posed a threat to firefighters or police on scene.

"It's a wood frame structure, and it was a ranch that was added on to," he said. "Like any other building that's been added on to, sometimes you don't know how it was built. The ceilings collapsing had nothing to do with construction; there was really nothing out of the ordinary about the building."

"To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been a fire in the house before," he said. "They didn't use the fireplace very often. Something happened to the chimney over time to make the bricks separate and they didn't notice."

The family of four escaped the home without harm, and the Red Cross has worked to find them a place to stay. One firefighter sustained minor burns, but did not receive treatment.

The building was insured against fire, and Hurley said insurance inspectors had already appraised the site.

"The insurance company is expecting to pay around $500,000," he said. "They will need to redo the building, and cover the loss of personal effects and lodging for the family."

Testing police/fire combo The fire marked another important first for Goffstown — the debut of the combined police and fire departments. Hurley said the only handicap was from an administrative standpoint.

"This was the first big test after the merger, and everything more or less went as it normally would," he said. "The police and fire departments did what they had to do."

Under normal circumstances, the fire chief and the deputy chief would command the scene, with one performing radio duties and the other logging events and locations of firefighters and police.

These responsibilities fell on Hurley alone.

"There's a regular dispatch channel and a fire ground operation channel, and both are operating at the same time," he said. "Two people are talking to you at the same time, and each one is asking questions that are equally important."

Hurley said one radio is mounted on a vehicle and the other is carried by the chief.

"The police had their hands full too, because we had minimal numbers of people on the scene," he said. "The people who did respond did a very good job."