N.H. Firefighters Commended for Containing Blaze

SOMERSWORTH, N.H. -- Quick action by the Somersworth Fire Department and other area departments Tuesday night to extinguish a two-alarm fire made a difference between a gutted building or a gutted building and injured residents.

"If there had been more of a delay by the fire department, the structure 30 feet away would have been exposed," said Somersworth Fire Lt. Kenneth Vincent. "Even five minutes more would have led to that building catching on fire from the radiant heat."

On Tuesday evening, crews responded to 302 Green St. at around 7:26 p.m. to several reports of a fire at the Sunningdale Country Club. No one was injured in the blaze, but some equipment contained in the building, including a tractor and some golf carts, were destroyed by the fire.

According to Lt. Vincent, none of the residents living in the apartment building on Green Street reported the blaze in the storage building just around 30 feet from their home. Instead, calls to police came from passers-by on Green Street, which Lt. Vincent estimated was a couple hundred feet away from the building.

"When I say this building was on fire I mean it," said Lt. Vincent. "It was fully involved when we arrived."

The storage building, measuring 30 feet by 50 feet according to Vincent, required mutual aid fire crews from Somersworth, Dover, Durham, Newington, South Berwick, Berwick and Rollinsford to combat the flames, which leveled the structure.

Firefighter Bruce Plante helped lead the offense against the blaze. Plante said when he arrived on scene, the team present had just called in the second alarm. According to Plante, the firefighters present were attempting to protect the club building from the flames because the club had two 225-gallon propane tanks attached to it.

"They did a wicked job with the limited amount of man power at first," said Plante. "They did a real great job."

Plante agreed with Vincent that the outcome of the blaze could have been far different if the departments hadn't reacted the way they did and if the fire had had more time to accelerate.

"By all means (it would have been different)," said Plante. "If it had been three o'clock in the morning and the fire had more of head start, it very well could have gotten into the club."

Lt. Vincent said the case has been turned over to the state fire marshal, who will be continuing the investigation. Vincent said the cause of the fire is still unknown, though there wasn't anything that appeared suspicious on the scene.

Vincent said recently the building had been acquired by the city because of unpaid taxes. He said whenever a building is sold or acquired then there's a fire within it, those extenuating circumstances are always taken into review by the investigation.

Copyright 2012 - Foster's Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service