NEW IPSWICH, N.H. -- A child and a 26-year-old man are confirmed dead after a fire tore through a home on Huse Road Sunday morning.
"Our goal right now is to recover the victims," said New Hampshire Fire Marshal William Degnan.
Firefighters were called to a home at 36 Huse Road around 5:40 a.m. Sunday, and once there encountered a two-story home fully engulfed in flames, Degnan said. Mutual aid calls to surrounding communities in New Hampshire and Massachusetts went out for tanker trucks needed to battle the flames, he said.
Seven people were inside the building when the fire started, Degnan said. Two bodies were located in the rubble, and were taken to the state medical examiner's office in Concord for identification, he said. New Ipswich Fire Chief David Leel said the ages of the deceased are two and 26. He said names would not be released Sunday evening, pendiing notification of family members. He could not offer a timetable for the identification process to be completed, or when the identities of the victim may be released to the public.
Five other people in the home were injured in the fire and are being treated at area hospitals, he said, though Degnan could not give more information on their conditions.
Firefighters and investigators spent the afternoon going through the building, conducting a systematic search, Degnan said. The search and recovery operation was slow going, according to Degnan, because the portions of the building that remained after the fire were deemed unstable and unsafe.
It took about two hours before the fire was knocked down. Fire officials on scene began releasing crews back to their respective communities around 10 a.m.
Degnan said the cause of the fire is still being investigated, though he said it was unlikely the blaze was intentionally set.
"We have no reason to believe it is a suspicious fire," he said.
Huse Road remained closed early Sunday evening, as local and state fire officials continued their investigation. On Sunday afternoon, two Jaffrey firefighters and three fire response vehicles were stationed at the entrance to Huse Road at Timbertop Road, turning vehicles away. Jaffrey Fire Captain Chris Bergeron said only emergency responders, fire, police, and medical workers were being allowed to travel further down the rural dirt road. Bergeron said in all five tankers full of water were brought to the scene during fire response.
New Ipswich Fire Chief David Leel and several state fire marshals were on Huse Road Sunday investigating, sifting through still smoking rubble trying to determine how the fire started, Bergeron said.
About five homes are located on the road. A Nashua man, who declined to give his name to a reporter, waited in an SUV at the entrance of Huse Road after firefighters refused to let him pass because he was not a resident. On the front passenger seat of the vehicle were wrapped Christmas presents for family members he had hoped to visit with today.
The man said his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren live in a house on the road and that his son-in-law had gone to the fire scene early in the morning to try and help any way he could. He said his daughter's house was without power for several hours due to the blaze, but it had since been restored.
New Hampshire Union Leader reporter Paul Feely contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 - The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
