State Police Probe Fire

At Canaan House

By Andrew Gorosko

A continuing state investigation into a fire that extensively damaged a section of Canaan House at Fairfield Hills on the night of April 13 has found that the blaze apparently occurred due to some unspecified malfunction.

“We’re still working on it at this point in time…It does not appear to be intentional,” State Police Detective Ken Christensen said this week. Det Christensen is investigating the fire for the state marshal’s office. The investigation will continue in order to learn specifically why the fire occurred.

On the rainy, windy night of April 13, an explosion and fire damaged a wing of Canaan House that had housed the public school system’s alternative high school program.

The damaged section of Canaan House has undergone extensive cleaning to make the area habitable again.

After receiving reports of an explosion and fire, several dozen Newtown Hook and Ladder, Sandy Hook, and Botsford firefighters responded and found that a large external heating-fuel tank had burst open and caught fire, shooting flames upward about 35 feet. The fuel tank, which contained thousands of gallons of #2 heating fuel, provided heating fuel for an adjacent external boiler for the 208,888-square-foot red-brick building. The fuel tank, boiler, and adjacent equipment were destroyed in the blaze.

Two firefighters received minor injuries at the fire. They were treated at the scene.

Because it was late at night, no one was in Canaan House. The alternative high school program has been relocated to Newtown Middle School.

A classroom on the southwest corner of the building wing was destroyed by the blaze. Adjacent classrooms were damaged. Smoke damage occurred in the second and third stories of the building.

The town plans to buy the state-owned 189-acre core campus at Fairfield Hills, including Canaan House, for $3.9 million. That purchase has been delayed repeatedly.

The town has been renting Canaan House space from the state for offices for the public schools, land use agency, health, and building departments, plus the town fire marshal.

The now-destroyed external heating system at Canaan House also was the source of a massive heating fuel spill on the snowy weekend of December 6–7. More than 4,500 gallons of #2 heating fuel spilled, causing extensive soil and groundwater contamination, which required a lengthy and expensive state cleanup project.