WILTON – Midnight found what humans could not on Saturday afternoon in the fire-destroyed remains of a Wilton couple’s home on Route 156: evidence of possible accelerant use.
Senior fire investigator Daniel L. Young said late Saturday afternoon that Midnight, a black Labrador retriever trained to detect ignitable liquids, “showed interest in a couple of areas” at the nearly finished two-story home of Richard and Stacy Austin.
Young would not disclose where those spots were, but did say that the fire began inside on the first floor.
An excavator was used Saturday morning to knock walls down and scoop and remove debris from the basement.
Evidence discovered by the dog was taken to the State Police Crime Lab in Augusta to be analyzed. Young said he asked that the work be rushed. He expects to have it by week’s end.
Midnight is one of two State Fire Marshal’s office dogs trained to detect accelerants. Young, a dog handler, said the dogs are taught to sit when they sniff hydrocarbons, chemical odors left by ignitable liquids. When the dog sits, it points to what it has smelled, then the dog gets fed.
Neither the Austins, nor their two children, ages 4 and 5, were home at the time of the blaze at 4 a.m. Friday. But, Young said he found the body of a golden retriever – one of three family dogs said to have been in the home – within the debris of the two-story house with an exterior porch and garage.
“We didn’t find remains of the other two dogs, a Pomeranian and a bigger dog. There was a lot of destruction there, so, they could have been totally consumed by the fire,” Young said.
Following an all-day search Saturday for the fire’s cause, Young declined to label the fire’s origin as suspicious. Instead, he would only say that it is being investigated.
“We have not been able to find any definitive cause yet, but, with the volume of fire they had, and the short period of the burn, and without what we call a fire load, it was unusual,” he said.
The basement, in which the Austins had been living while the house was being built, contained their furniture. The first and second floors had nothing that could catch fire and burn, Young said.
“Witnesses said the volume of the fire was front to back and side to side, so, that is unusual. It was fully involved. Because of that, we have some issues,” Young said of himself and senior fire investigator Mike Keely and Sgt. Ken Grimes at the scene.
Additionally, investigators learned that front windows in the home had been busted out six weeks prior to the fire.
“There is a lot of work that has to be done,” he said, estimating damage to the house at more than $300,000 due to its location in a wide-open field surrounded by picturesque hills and mountains.
Richard Austin, 44, who arrived at the burning house 15 minutes after firefighters got there, was arrested by a Franklin County deputy sheriff on charge of violating bail conditions, and taken to Franklin County Jail in Farmington.
A jail official contacted by phone early Saturday evening, said Austin remained incarcerated. He is expected to be arraigned on Monday, March 13, in Farmington District Court.
Wilton police Chief Wayne Gallant said Friday that Austin was allegedly under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs when the deputy arrived at the fire scene Friday, a violation of the conditions of his bail for a previous arrest. That’s why no bail had been set by Saturday.
In February, Farmington police arrested Austin on a charge of unlawful possession of scheduled drugs and a warrant for failure to appear on a charge of possession of scheduled drugs.
The uninsured new home was located less than a mile from the intersection of Route 156, also called Weld Road, and Pond Road. Friday’s blaze was the second time in nearly two years that the Austins lost a home to fire at the same location.
In March 2004, the insured farmhouse and attached barn that they were renovating, burned. Wilton Fire Chief Sonny Durham, who investigated that fire, said on Saturday that the cause was undetermined.
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