BELLOWS FALLS — A teenaged Rockingham volunteer firefighter returned home late Tuesday night after an emergency call to a bad accident to find his home on fire.
The young firefighter, 17, sprung into action, first trying to put out the fire in a second story room with a fire extinguisher, and when that failed, he closed the door to the room, and helped a responding police officer and a Golden Cross Ambulance crew evacuate his father, Tim Leonard, who is wheelchair bound.
The young firefighter, whom neither Rockingham Fire Chief Kevin Kingsbury nor Bellows Falls Fire Chief Shaun McGinnis would name because of his age, did everything right, McGinnis said, and as a result saved their home at 28 Center Street. McGinnis said he believes the firefighter is a student at Bellows Falls Union High School.
McGinnis said earlier in the evening, the firefighter was at the scene of a bad accident on Route 103 in Rockingham, near the intersection with Old Darby Hill Road at around 10 p.m..
McGinnis, who was the first emergency responder on the scene, said a woman driving a car with Pennsylvania plates had gone out of control, flipped her vehicle and crashed backwards into a tree. The woman was seriously injured and unconscious when he first got there, he said.
But that was just the first of two emergencies Tuesday night.
McGinnis said fire emergency crews got a call at about 11:20 p.m., when the young firefighter got home and found smoke in the house. He immediately called in the emergency, McGinnis said, and used the home’s fire extinguishers, but they were inadequate.
McGinnis praised the firefighter for doing the smartest thing in such an emergency — closing the doors to the rooms. Then he turned his attention to getting his father out of the house, with the help of neighbors.
While the home’s handicapped ramp is in the rear of the building, he said the man was taken out the front door.
No one was hurt in the fire, which he said appeared not to be suspicious in nature. He said the firefighter, his parents, and a sister live in the home.
He said he believes the fire was electrical in nature and that the fire started in a recreation room, where the family watches television and plays games. He said firefighters had to break three windows to vent the heavy smoke from the house, since smoke was coming out of the home’s eaves.
He said because the door was closed, it kept the fire contained and the closed door actually starved the fire of oxygen, helping to put it out.
McGinnis said the home did sustain some smoke and water damage, which he believe could be easily repaired and the family allowed back in their home. He said the electricity had been temporarily turned off and water disconnected and the pipes drained, all things that can easily be restored.
If the firefighter hadn’t closed that door, he said, it would have been a much different story.
“Closing that door made a huge difference,” McGinnis said, adding that he hopes others would follow the young firefighter’s lead. “Close your doors,” he said.
“It was a lot less tragic because he was there,” said Rockingham/Bellows Falls Municipal Manager Scott Pickup.
McGinnis praised the work by the other fire departments that responded to the scene, as well as Golden Cross Ambulance and Southwestern NH Fire Mutual Aid. The fire immediately went to a second alarm because there was a person in the house, he said.
The Vermont State Police did not issue a release about the Rockingham crash.