Unnoticed Blaze Destroys Vacant Sandy Hook House

By Andrew Gorosko

Fire officials this week were probing the cause of an unusual overnight blaze that destroyed a vacant house on Valley Field Road South in Sandy Hook, in which the fire went unnoticed while it was underway.

Fire Marshal Bill Halstead said this week, “We’re still gathering information. It’s still an active investigation.” The cause of the fire is listed as “undetermined.”

A damage estimate is placed at more than $300,000. Firefighters poured about 12,000 gallons of water on the ruins. There were no reported injuries.

At 9:19 am on Friday, November 5, Sandy Hook firefighters were dispatched to 24 Valley Field Road South for an investigation. The road is a long dead-end street that extends northward from Old Green Road.

When they arrived, firefighters found the glowing remains of a Cape-style house lying within what had been the house’s basement. Two masonry chimneys were all that remained standing of the 1933 house.

The house was the former residence of the late Vicki Julian who died in July 2008.

The vacant house, which was for sale on the real estate market, was in the process of being improved, said Chief Halstead, who also heads the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company.

The fire does not appear to be of suspicious origin, he said.

On November 5, local fire officials called in the state fire marshal’s staff with a dog trained to sniff for “accelerants,” or the substances that used to promote a fire’s spread when a fire is intentionally set.

The dog was not able to detect the presence of any accelerants, Chief Halstead said.

Police are aiding fire officials in the probe, he said.

On the morning of November 4, police had received a report from a real estate agent handling the sale of the house that a burglary had occurred at the premises.

It was a workman who had been sent to repair the damage that was caused by that burglary who discovered on November 5 that the house had burned to the ground, Chief Halstead said.

It is unclear if the burglary is related to the house fire, he said.

Police Officer Steve Ketchum, who is a deputy fire marshal, said the investigation will be thorough, with interviews of nearby residents being conducted to learn if they noticed anything unusual occurring in the area.

The National Weather Service will be contacted to learn whether a lightning strike might have caused the fire, he said. It was apparently raining and stormy when the fire occurred.

Police will pursue “all avenues of investigation” in the probe, Officer Ketchum said.

Chief Halstead said that investigators will be probing the blaze through interviews with people connected with the estate of Vicki Julian. Fire investigations can be lengthy when estates are involved, he noted. There are many people to interview, he said.

Chief Halstead said there is the possibility that the fire was electrical in origin, noting that the house had functioning electrical service when the fire occurred. The building contained old-style electrical wiring.

It does not appear that a functioning furnace within the house caused the fire, he said, noting that the furnace had recently been checked by a heating fuel company. It is unclear whether any major electrical appliances within the house might have caused the fire, he added.

The fire chief explained that the damage to the premises was so complete that it was not possible to find the point of origin of the blaze, and thus not possible to establish the cause of the fire.

“I can’t tell where the fire started, so I can’t tell how it started,” he said of the thorough damage.

An insurance investigator went to the scene to inspect the damage.

Chief Halstead said that the fire that destroyed the house likely went unnoticed by people in the area because the incident occurred in the nighttime during rainy conditions. He noted that the house was positioned in an isolated area on a dead-end street, set back about 200 feet from the road, and well away from other houses.

Had such a fire occurred on a clear night, it might have been noticed while it was happening, he said.

As part of the fire probe, investigators are checking into whether anyone would have any particular motives for setting such a fire, the fire chief said.

However, it is unclear whether investigators will ever be able to determine the cause of the fire, he said.

The fire apparently occurred sometime between 7 pm on Thursday, November 4, and 9 am on Friday, November 5.

The six-acre property held a 1,586-square-foot Cape-style house. The site has several outbuildings. Before the fire, the appraised overall value of the property was listed as $496,990 on town land records.

Chief Halstead asks anyone with information about the fire to contact him at 203-270-4370.