Fire destroys unoccupied home
Buy a PrintLeslie H. Dixon/Sun Journal
Firefighters battle a fire at the home of former Greenwood Selectman Marie Bartlett on Tuesday afternoon. The cause of the fire had not been determined.
Buy a PrintLeslie H. Dixon/Sun Journal
Greenwood Fire Chief Jim Owens talks to firefighters battling a blaze at the vacant home of former Selectman Marie Bartlett on Tuesday afternoon. The cause of the fire on the dead-end Pine Ridge Road has not been determined.
Buy a PrintLeslie H. Dixon/Sun Journal
A Bethel firefighter swings his ax to open up the front of a burning home on Pine Ridge Road in Greenwood on Tuesday afternoon. The cause of the fire in former Selectman Marie Bartlett's vacant house has not been determined.
GREENWOOD — A vacant house owned by former Selectman Marie Bartlett was destroyed by a fire of unknown origin Tuesday afternoon.
Fire crews from seven towns were called shortly after 2 p.m. as flames consumed the house on the dead-end Pine Ridge Road off Howe Hill Road. Family member Roger Onorati of Newton, Mass., said the house has been empty since Bartlett's husband, Paul, died last year.
"Someone happened to see (smoke) from the road and called us," Fire Chief Jim Owens said. "It was cooking up pretty good."
Firefighters laid hose a quarter-mile down the road to the one-story, two-bedroom, wood-frame house. Owens said two engines were stationed at the nearby Saunders Brothers Mill when embers were seen floating behind the house across the St. Lawrence & Atlantic railroad tracks and onto the mill property.
Firefighters from Greenwood, Woodstock, Bethel, Newry, West Paris, Paris and Norway, along with Tri Town Rescue, were at the scene.
Owens said the state Fire Marshal's Office would investigate the cause. It appeared the fire may have started in the living room area at the rear of the house, he said.
Onorati said the house was insured but furniture and other items were still inside. "We check on it periodically in case of a break-in, but I wasn't planning on anything like this," he said as firefighters sprayed water on the smoking roof line.
Marie Bartlett, who resides on Gore Road, was selectman from 1983 to 1998, according to Town Manager Kim Sparks.
ldixon@sunjournal.com.
