NOTE: This story has been updated, with additional information and comments, from the original story about the November 6 fire.

A Newtown family has been displaced after a fire left heavy damage to their home on November 6.

Dodgingtown and Hawleyville fire companies were dispatched to 17 Wedgewood Court around 1:30 pm last Friday afternoon for a reported residential fire alarm. When the first firefighter arrived at that address, however, the call was upgraded to a structure fire after the firefighter reported heavy fire showing from the garage of the residence.

All five Newtown fire companies — adding Botsford, Hook & Ladder, and Sandy Hook — then responded to the call.

Dodgingtown Fire Chief Steve Murphy was the officer in command of the scene.

Murphy said between 40 and 50 firefighters responded, between those at the scene and those operating the tankers.

Bethel, Brookfield, and Stony Hill sent tankers to assist at the scene. Bridgewater provided mutual aid.

Wedgewood is a dead-end road off Taunton Hill Road. Newtown’s online Assessor’s Database lists 17 Wedgewood as a 3,676-square-foot Colonial style home built in 1998.

A portable pond was set up in the cul-de-sac. Fire tankers poured water into that pond, and then pumped to firefighters closer to the house.

Firefighters on the ground used hose lines to combat the blaze. Water was also put onto the fire from a water gun atop a Dodgingtown truck, and from a nozzle from the top of Hook & Ladder’s ladder truck.

Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Crew transported the male homeowner to a hospital for smoke inhalation. The homeowner, according to Murphy, had gone back inside the home to get the family dog out. The dog was safely removed from the home; the female homeowner and another family member also safely exited the house without injury.

A paramedic remained at the scene, and a second NVAC ambulance and crew quickly arrived to cover the scene, per protocol.

Cause Unclear

The fire started in the garage and spread northeast, to the attic and then across the width of the house. The upper level of the home was soon engulfed, as were two vehicles in the driveway. Dark gray smoke quickly turned to heavy, black, billowing smoke filled with flames.

Murphy called for firefighters to evacuate from the house around 2:15 pm.

“The attic was very heavily involved,” he explained a few hours after the fire. “It was a truss construction, and when one fails, the whole roof fails. It was getting to that point, so I was getting a little concerned.”

Firefighters continued fighting the fire from the exterior of the building. It took nearly 90 minutes for the bulk of the fire to be knocked down.

In addition to those responding to the scene last week, Bridgewater sent a truck and a crew to stand by at Dodgingtown firehouse. Southbury did the same, to Sandy Hook’s main station, as did Stepney to Botsford’s station.

The American Red Cross initially reached out to see if it could provide support to the family on Friday. Murphy said this week the organization was not needed at the scene. The home was uninhabitable following the fire.

As of November 11 the cause was still unclear. Only the location of the ignition point was apparent to Murphy, who is also a deputy fire marshal for the Town of Newtown.

“It was definitely in the garage, but I can’t tell you what in the garage started it,” Murphy said.

“I met the insurance company’s fire investigator yesterday, and we poked around a little,” he added. It will be up to the insurance company, he said, “to decide whether they want to spend the time and money and rip the garage apart to determine the specific cause.”

“The house will probably be a teardown,” he additionally noted. While much is still standing and untouched, there is a lot of smoke and heavy damage, he said.

“Where the garage was, with the room above, that’s destroyed,” the fire chief said. “Then it got up into the roof and burned the roof off.”

The main portion of the house, he said, the first and second floor, had minimal fire damage.

“But everything’s wet, or black,” he added.