Source: Sunday Republican (Springfield, MA)
Author: PATRICK JOHNSON
WILLIAMSBURG, MA – In the biggest fire here in the last several years, a 12-room house on Eastern Avenue burned to the ground yesterday, Fire Chief Roger Bisbee said.
The house, owned by Gerald Lashway, caught fire at about 11:30 a.m. yesterday and was fully engulfed with flames by the time the first fire units arrived on scene, Bisbee said.
Firefighters concentrated on preventing the flames from spreading, he said.
“The magnitude of the fire was such that there was no attack that was going to save anything,” Bisbee said. “It was the biggest fire in the last few years,” he said.
No one was in the home at the time of the fire, he said. It is not considered suspicious.
The Williamsburg fire department requested assistance from neighboring communities. Chesterfield, Goshen and Northampton sent pumper trucks to the scene, he said.
In addition to flames, firefighters had to contend with the overbearing midday heat, he said.
One Goshen firefighter and an emergency medical technician were overcome by heat and were transported to The Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton. Each was treated for dehydration and released, Bisbee said.
“The EMTs were working hard to see that everyone had plenty of fluids. Apparently this one over-exerted himself doing that,” Bisbee said.
Firefighters were on scene for more than six hours.
No cause of the fire has been determined.