NORTHFIELD — One adult died in a garage fire on the south side of East Street between Warwick Road and School Street on Sunday night, according to Jake Wark, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services.
“We had about 50 firefighters at the height of the fire,” Northfield Fire Chief Floyd “Skip” Dunnell III said Monday. “It immediately went to a second alarm because of the intensity and it probably took us 15 to 20 minutes to knock the fire down.”
The Northfield Fire Department responded to the area of 90 East St. at about 7 p.m. Upon arrival, firefighters found heavy smoke and flames at a single-story repair garage, according to a statement from Wark.
“The fire consumed the building of origin and damaged a nearby garage and a property across the street as well,” Wark wrote.
One adult “was located inside and declared dead at the scene,” the statement reads.
Police established a perimeter around the property using yellow tape, and emergency responders were seen working into Monday morning. Smoke was still lingering in the air at around midnight, despite the fire starting hours earlier. The repair garage where the fire started appeared to have burned to the ground by Sunday’s end, while an adjacent storage garage showed external charring. By morning, it was apparent that the storage garage’s interior and contents sustained heavy damage.
“We knocked that fire down, but both buildings need to be totally destroyed,” said Dunnell, who noted that both buildings were owned by the same person.
A black Honda parked just outside the storage garage at the time of the fire remained at the scene into Monday. Across the street, a residence at 91 East Street sustained melted vinyl siding from the “intense fire’s radiated heat,” Dunnell said.
Responding fire departments included Northfield; Warwick; Erving; Gill; Bernardston; Turners Falls; Greenfield; Winchester, New Hampshire; Hinsdale, New Hampshire; and Vernon, Vermont. The Brattleboro Fire Department provided station coverage. Other agencies at the scene included the Northfield Police Department, Northfield EMS, Northfield Highway Department, Massachusetts Department of Fire Services and Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. An excavator also was in operation at the site. Emergency responders left the scene at around 3 a.m. Monday morning, according to Dunnell.
Police Chief John Hall, who recalled leaving between 1 and 2 a.m., returned to the area Monday afternoon alongside regional co-response mental health clinician Leeanne Hadsel to check in on neighbors.
“I think any incident like this is really traumatizing, and it’s really such a tragedy, but I did really witness a lot of resilience and communal respect,” Hadsel said, noting that she and Hall went “door-to-door” and spoke with around 15 community members who live near the scene.
Hadsel said she responds “in the immediate aftermath of trauma and crisis … so people feel that community wrap-around support.” In her conversations, Hadsel broke down the “psychological stress that may come as a component of witnessing such an event” and talked through what the healing process might look like.
“Although tragic, an incident like this really can act as a community unifier,” she said.
Wark said the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s identification process is ongoing and that the cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Northfield Fire Department, Northfield Police Department and State Police assigned to the offices of the State Fire Marshal and Northwestern district attorney’s office.
This is the second fatal fire within a week in Franklin County. Last Tuesday, 66-year-old Judy Verchot died after her residence caught fire at 20 Bridge Street in Millers Falls.
Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-930-4231 or jmendoza@recorder.com.