Chris Lowrey
BRISTOL Nov. 5 , 2017
A Bristol man came within an hour of being caught in a blaze that ended up destroying his home in the early morning of Nov. 5.
The Bristol fire department received a call from a neighbour at 5:20 a.m. with reports of flames engulfing a home on Ragged Chute Road.
Just under an hour before firefighters got the call, the homeowner had left the house for a hunting excursion.
“He had left to go hunting an hour previous,” Bristol fire chief Kevin Kluke said, adding that the man was lucky he wasn’t asleep when the fire broke out.
By the time firefighters arrived on scene, the house was completely engulfed. Kluke said all that was left of the home when he arrived was a pile of debris in a hole.
“There was nothing to save,” Kluke said.
More than 20 firefighters from the Shawville-Clarendon, Bristol and Campbell’s Bay-Litchfield fire departments responded to the blaze.
Firefighters were on scene for about seven hours until they wrapped up around 12:30 in the afternoon.
To make matter worse, downed power lines that were still live cut off the first responders from the blaze, preventing them from surrounding the building and limiting their ability to put out the fire.
“We could only attack it from one side,” Kluke said.
None of the firefighters or any residents suffered injuries.
