A longtime Newtown couple was displaced after their home was significantly damaged by fire last Friday evening. Doris Botsford said this week she and her husband knew something was wrong when the house started filling with smoke.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t find the fire,” she told The Newtown Bee January 8. Her husband and son were looking, but “it was in a wall and we couldn’t find it until it broke through the roof.”

Ronald Botsford and Ronald Botsford Jr tried to put out the fire, Doris said, but she was also on the phone with 911 by then.

All five of Newtown’s volunteer companies responded to 208 Brushy Hill Road around 9:30 January 3. Botsford Fire Rescue Firefighter Jay Nezvesky arrived within three minutes of the dispatch for a possible chimney fire with extension and confirmed the working fire. The home is north of Brushy Hill Road’s intersection with Silver Brook Lane.

According to the online assessor’s database, the Botsford home is a 2,269-square-foot cape style dwelling built in 1965.

Botsford Fire Rescue Chief Andrew White said it took just under an hour to control the fire.

“Our first guy pulled up and saw fire coming through the roof by the chimney,” White told The Newtown Bee the morning after the fire. “We pulled up, stretched a line, and went to the second floor and started hitting” the fire, he said.

“We got there and went right at it,” the chief said. “If we hadn’t, they would have lost the house.”

Firefighters used tankers to get water to the scene. After trying to connect to a pipe on Castle Meadow Road, firefighters needed to move to a second pipe on Huntingtown Road, according to White, after it was discovered the head on the Castle Meadow pipe was broken.

The move did not delay firefighting efforts, however.

“We had enough water on the tankers already on scene to start knocking it down,” he said of the fire.

Newtown Deputy Fire Marshal Dave Ober called the damage “pretty extensive.”

Ober was at the scene Friday night and again Saturday morning, conducting his investigation.

He confirmed on Monday that the fire’s origin was “in the area of the woodstove chimney.”

Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps and a paramedic were also sent to the scene on Friday, per structure fire protocol.

Bethel, Southbury and Stepney all sent crews to cover Dodgingtown, Sandy Hook and Botsford’s stations, respectively, while the town firefighters were on the scene.

There were no injuries reported.

Newtown Public Works was also requested at the scene with a sand truck due to icing conditions.

JP Maguire was also called to the scene to secure the home.

Botsford firefighters returned to the property late Saturday morning at the request of Ober.

“There was a smoldering ember in the insulation, something that had blown into the attic, so to be on the safe side we requested Botsford,” Ober said.

Monday morning, the couple’s daughter confirmed her parents had been able to also get their dog out of their home without injury. The Botsfords are staying with family, she also noted.

Blessed And Grateful

Doris Botsford said this week she and her husband don’t yet know when they will be able to move back into the home where they have lived for 60 years.

“We’re still talking with our insurance company,” she said Wednesday morning.

The home has an apartment on the back side of the dwelling, which the couple will move into as soon as possible.

“There’s smoke and water damage there too, but they’re thinking we can get into the apartment at least once it’s clean and sanitized,” she said.

“I don’t know how long that’s going to take, but that’ll be a lot faster than the house, and that,” she added, “is a blessing.”

Botsford said despite the fire she feels blessed and grateful for many things.

The Red Cross responded to the fire on Friday, offering a place for the couple to stay, along with funds to put toward clothing and food.

“They were amazing,” Botsford said, “and while we appreciated the offer, we told them to save all of that for someone who needs it. We can do this with our finances, and family and friends.

“When I told the lady from the Red Cross that we’re blessed, she looked at me and said ‘But your house just burned down!’” Botsford recalled with a laugh. “We’re fortunate, though. Our son is a contractor, and very versed in this kind of thing. He can handle the assessments and everything else, and we have a place to stay.

“We had family offering to stay with us, or have us stay with them, but our son lives right across the road. So we have a place to stay, and it’s very convenient for us,” she said. The Botsfords will be able to watch everything as their home is repaired, including roof work scheduled to begin later this week, she said.

Further, not everything was lost in the fire. The home’s second floor was destroyed and the first suffered heavy smoke and water damage, but firefighters did what they could to salvage some personal items.

“They got things out of drawers, they saved a lot of things including our wedding photos and a lot of papers,” Botsford said. “They must have gone in and out of that house 30 times, getting things that may not mean much to others but they’re irreplaceable to us.

“I would like to thank those firefighters 1,000 times over,” Botsford said. “They were so good, trying to save what they could of our stuff.”

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.