Fire engulfs an Augusta Road residence in Jefferson the evening of Friday, April 25. The home was ultimately a “total loss,” said resident Carol Mathews, who lived in the home with her sister, Janice Mathews, two dogs, and a cat. There were no injuries, however, the cat could not be found after the fire. (Photo courtesy Carol Mathews)
Jefferson residents lost their home and pet cat in a Friday, April 25 fire that was ultimately ruled to be accidental by the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
Firefighters from nine towns first worked for over five hours to contain the blaze at 710 Augusta Road that evening. Then, when the blaze rekindled in the early hours of the next morning, crews returned for another five-hour-long effort.
Carol Mathews, who resided in the home with her sister Jan Mathews, thanked the Jefferson Fire Department for its “heroic” work over many hours at the scene. She said she and her sister were “grateful and humbled” by the support they had received from the Jefferson community in the wake of the fire.
According to Jefferson Fire Chief Darin Walker, the state fire marshal’s investigation indicated the blaze started from improperly disposed smoking materials that ignited behind the home sometime before 5:30 p.m. Initially, the blaze went unnoticed; the residents were outside in the front yard and were unaware of the blaze for a period of time Walker estimated may have been around 10-15 minutes.
“It caught the back side of the house on fire outside, and then it just ran up the walls into the soffit vent and right to the peak (of the roof),” Walker said.
Soffit vents allow air into attic spaces for essential ventilation.
“Unfortunately, when you’ve got a fire outside that climbs the walls, the ventilation system does what it’s supposed to,” Walker said.
As the blaze took over the attic of the home, the residents began to smell smoke.
“When they found where it was coming from, the back side of the garage and house was all afire,” Walker said.
The residents called for help, and the Lincoln County Communications Center paged the Jefferson, Waldoboro, Whitefield, Somerville, Nobleboro fire departments to the scene at 5:36 p.m., along with Waldoboro EMS and Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. Fire departments from Washington, Windsor, Newcastle, and Pittston provided mutual aid.
The lag time between when the blaze began to burn and its discovery complicated efforts to fight the fire, Walker said.
“It had such a good head start that it compromised the roof pretty quickly, so it had actually burnt the ridge beam right out,” he said.
The house was build solidly with post-and-beam construction, meaning its thick beams burnt stubbornly, according to Walker. In addition, the rear half of the building’s roof had been reinforced with metal. Metal roofs are often placed on top of existing shingle roofs, creating a challenge for firefighters by sheltering the blaze from the reach of hoses, Walker said.
“As a firefighter, it’s one of the worst things in the world that we can encounter,” he said. “It’s a lot slipperier. It’s harder to vent and it won’t burn through … Then you get fire in between the metal and the shingles.”
Walker said he suspects the space between the metal roof and house structure had contributed to the fire’s rekindling later that evening.
Firefighters initially knocked down the fire in about five hours and cleared the scene at about 10:30 p.m. However, at 12:39 a.m. on Saturday, April 26, the Jefferson Fire Department was called to the scene again after a caller reported the fire had rekindled.
“We had just gotten home from putting the fire truck back together,” Walker said.
The crew would remain on the scene until the sky was light, ultimately packing up at about 5:30 a.m.
Walker said he was surprised by the second call. Before leaving the scene the first time, the crew walked the property with a thermal imaging camera and recorded no surfaces warmer than 65 degrees Fahrenheit, he said.
According to both Walker and Carol Mathews, the building is “a total loss.” When the fire first broke out, the sisters successfully removed their vehicles from the garage and got their two dogs out of the home, according to Walker. However, they could not locate their cat, and have not been able to find the cat among the wreckage of the house. The pair assumed the cat was a casualty of the blaze, Carol Mathews said.
No people were injured in the course of fighting the fire, according to Walker. He said he believed they had homeowner’s insurance.
In a Facebook message Tuesday, April 29, Mathews called the firefighters who worked to contain the blaze “heroic one and all.”
She and Janice Mathews are staying with a neighbor and friend after losing their house. The kindness of their fellow Jefferson residents was humbling, Carol Mathews said.
“Lots of folks in the community that don’t have a clue who we are have reached out to offer support and help; very awesome town we live in,” she said. “When the worst happens, people become their best.”
