Cause Of Sandy Hook House Fire Remains Unclear

By Andrew Gorosko

Fire investigators’ examination of debris this week at the scene of Christmas night fire, which totally destroyed an eight-room house at 57 Osborn Hill Road in Sandy Hook, has not produced a cause for the apparently accidental fire, Fire Marshal Bill Halstead said.

“[The cause is] going to be left ‘undetermined’…We really couldn’t come up with any exact cause” for the fire that destroyed the Colonial-style Russo residence, said Mr Halstead, who also is Sandy Hook’s fire chief.

There is no reason to believe that the fire was a suspicious one, he said. The fire started in the vicinity of a 2001 Mazda MPV sport-utility vehicle that was parked in a garage that was enclosed within the bottom level of the house, Chief Halstead said. The vehicle was completely destroyed by the fire, he said.

 “As far as I’m concerned, we’re done,” he said of town fire officials’ probe into the cause of the blaze.

Town fire investigators and investigators for the Russos’ home insurance firm probed the wreckage this week in seeking to learn the cause of the blaze that drew approximately 55 firefighters from seven fire companies to the scene on Christmas night to battle the blaze.

Members of the Russo family were returning home at about 10 that night, when they used a remote control to open one of the doors on the family’s two-bay garage and found that the garage was ablaze. Family members had been away from the house since about 4:20 pm.

Overall, the loss connected with the fire exceeds $800,000, and may reach $1 million, when the calculations are complete, Chief Halstead said.

 The heavily damaged 2,800-square-foot house, which was constructed in 1986, will be demolished, Chief Halstead said. The Russos’ insurance firm would then build the family a new house on the site, he added.

The family of four is temporarily staying in a rental house in the area near their former home, he said.

The fire resulted in a couple of firefighters receiving minor injuries.

Sandy Hook, Newtown Hook & Ladder, Botsford, Hawleyville, Dodgingtown, Stevenson, and Southbury firefighters responded to the incident. Firefighters ferried water to the fire from a pond near the intersection of Great Ring Road and Bradley Lane, a distance of more than two miles. There are no fire hydrants in the area near the fire.