By Celeste Katz Marston — Celeste@theconcordbridge.org
First responders from Concord and surrounds battled not only leaping flames but sweltering temperatures Tuesday as a four-alarm blaze did severe damage to the home at 17 Bartkus Farm Road.
Fire Chief Thomas Judge said the call came in from a passerby at 4:41 p.m. — after the resolution of Tuesday’s statewide 911 outage.
“We found heavy fire throughout the house and it was coming through the roof at that point. So we went immediately to a defensive operation,” he said.
The homeowners were not present and no civilians were injured in the fire at the 9,700-square-foot home nestled in a cul de sac between Middlesex School and the Carlisle line, Judge said.
One firefighter was taken to the hospital for heat exhaustion.
The cause of the fire, which caused “significant” damage, remains under investigation, he said.
Asked by The Concord Bridge if the blaze might have a suspicious origin, Judge replied, “I don’t have any reason to think that, but I can’t say definitively right now.”
The State Police Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit is assisting with the investigation of the house, where Judge said renovations might have been underway. Assessor records list the home as having 4,100 square feet of living space.
Judge said it took at least an hour for firefighters to knock down the heaviest flames, and that Tuesday’s heat was a major challenge to the effort.
The massive fire operation shut down Bartkus Farm Road and diverted traffic from Lowell Road.
Every minute counts
Stuart Strong, a college student from across the street, said he was driving home from work when he spotted “a huge black cloud” rising over the house and called 911.
Without knowing that the house was empty, “I grabbed my girlfriend, Paige, and we went over because we know that there’s a dog that lives there,” he said. “We went and knocked on the doors and tried to see if there was any sound [or] barks or anything.”
Paige Lillibridge said the couple “started trying to break the back doors to try to get the dog,” but the windows were apparently shatterproof.
Meanwhile, “The house just started getting engulfed in flames,” she said.
“When people say ‘every minute in a fire counts,’ this was a time where I actually realized it really does.”
She added that “nobody was home at the time because they were all out [due to] the home renovations.”
The conflagration triggered a massive response from a dozen fire companies and involved an estimated 55 personnel, Judge told reporters at the scene.
Among them: Acton, the Air Force, Bedford, Boxborough, Burlington, Carlisle, Lexington, Lincoln, Littleton, Maynard, Sudbury, Wayland, and Weston. Firefighters from Weston and Stow also covered town fire stations while Concord first responders battled the blaze.
“As devastating as it is to have your belongings go up in flames, I think at the end of the day, everybody here is just really thankful that everyone in the community’s safe,” Lillibridge said.
