Saturday night fire destroys garage, ignites brush along Route 10

A hillside brush fire began during a garage fire on Route 10 in Chester Saturday night. Photos by Shawn Cunningham. Click photo to launch gallery.

By  Cynthia Prairie
© 2015 Telegraph Publishing, LLC

UPDATE – 8:30 a.m. Sunday May 3:  The Chester Fire Department reports that the cause of the fire has been determined but it is not being released and that the scene has been turned over to the Chester Police Dept. The fire department also explained that downtown Chester went dark when it requested that power be shut off to the Route 10 area but Green Mountain Power initially turned off the wrong part of the grid.

At about 8:20 p.m. Saturday, portions of downtown Chester were pitched into darkness as firefighters worked a structure fire in the 1800 block of Route 10.

The fire, which began in the garage on a hill on the north side of the road, spread  and set the hillside below it ablaze.  Firefighters from Chester, Ludlow, Springfield, West Weathersfield,  Rockingham, Proctorsville, Rockingham, Ascutney and Bellows Falls responded to the scene, setting up a reservoir for tankers to drop water that could be pumped up the steep drive.

Brush fire flares up on Route 10.

There were no reports of injuries by 9:30 p.m.

Large flames from the brush fire lit up the hillside until firefighters sent water cascading down from above.  The Grafton Fire Department and Londonderry’s Phoenix Company manned the Chester fire house.  No one was at home at the time and it appeared that the house did not burn. The Telegraph will have more details as they are made available.

Saturday’s brush fire took a quick turn for the worse, but was doused by firefighters on top of the hill.

Firefighters on the hillside are framed by trees as they work to cut down a garage and brush fire along Route 10 on Saturday night.