No one injured as Sunday morning fire destroys Chester home

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2024 Telegraph Publishing LLC

A fire Sunday morning on Jewett Road in Chester destroyed a home and an outbuilding, but no one was injured as the homeowner escaped the building amid black smoke.

According to Chester Police Chief Tom Williams, around 9:15 a.m. this morning, a motorist spotted smoke coming from 191 Jewett Road off Route 103 North and thought it might be a brush fire. The witness drove up to the smoke and instead found a small building on fire, then pounded on the door.

According to the Chester Fire Department, Charles Wright, who owns the property, told firefighters that he had just loaded his woodstove, then went outside to do some chores. He apparently went back into the house and responded to the motorist’s knocking. As Wright answered the door, black smoke and flames began pouring out of the building behind him. By 9:30 a.m., a huge column of dark smoke rose skyward.

The Chester Fire Department received the fire call at 9:23 a.m., Fire Chief Scott Richardson said, adding that the structure was an “open concept” that acted like a chimney and accelerated the fire. Richardson said firefighters believe the woodstove was the origin of the blaze, which became hot enough to ignite a barn 20 feet away.

Richardson said that around 25 fighters from seven departments in addition to Chester’s worked the fire or handled the tankers that ferried water from hydrants on Church Street and Route 103. The additional fire crews were from Proctorsville, Springfield, West Weathersfield, Rockingham, Westminster, Windham and Walpole.

Recently, dry breezy conditions have prompted the state to put a moratorium on outdoor burning. Richardson told The Telegraph that it was fortunate that the fire happened in the morning because “embers the size of dinner plates” were falling on ground covered with frost and dew, which extinquished them.

“We’d still be out there on that mountain otherwise,” said Richardson.

Another complication involved the fire’s proximity to railroad tracks, forcing tanker trucks to back across the tracks to drop water into portable tanks for the pumpers to draw from. A southbound freight train passed the scene just as firefighters were responding to Jewett Road. The Vermont Rail System, which manages the freight runs, stopped trains during the fire and resumed traffic when firefighting was done.

Richardson, who retired from the Springfield Fire Department, became interim chief earlier this year. He said that when he arrived at the scene, everyone was doing an “awesome job” and he only needed to back them up with operational assistance.