Nighttime Garage Fire Quickly Extinguished

By Andrew Gorosko

About 3 am Tuesday, Dodgingtown firefighters responded to a small fire that occurred inside an attached garage at a single-family house at 20 Poverty Hollow Road, fire officials said.

Dodgingtown Fire Captain Joe Masso, who was incident commander, said there were no injuries in the fire.

Fire Marshal Bill Halstead, who is investigating the blaze with police Officer Steve Ketchum, said the cause of the nighttime fire at the Barrett residence is of undetermined origin. The fire caused an estimated $13,500 damage to the building and its contents, he said.

Kevin and Maryann Barrett and their two children live at the house, Mr Halstead said. Mr Barrett and the two children were home at the time of the fire, the fire marshal said.

Unsure of the cause of the blaze, Dodgingtown firefighters called in the fire marshal to investigate, Capt Masso said.

Some construction debris and building materials had caught fire inside the garage, Capt Masso said. The first firefighters to arrive at the scene used a garden hose to knock down the blaze, he said. The firefighters found a large pail outside the garage containing some smoldering material and extinguished it, he said.

The fire caused extensive smoke and soot damage inside the two-bay garage where a van was parked, he said. A garage door also was damaged. The house remains habitable.

After Dodgingtown firefighters extinguished the small fire, firefighters from Hook & Ladder and Hawleyville, who had been alerted of the fire and were on their way to the scene, were told they could return to their firehouses.

The house’s occupants discovered the fire after a carbon monoxide detector sounded in living space that is located above the garage, Capt Masso said.

Had the fire gone undetected for another few minutes, the blaze could have become a serious structure fire, he said.