Huge Fire Destroys Several Homes At Wildemere Beach

Last night at roughly 2:30A.M. neighbors frantically called 911 to report a burning house next door to them. By 3:00A.M neighbors claim the house was completely engulfed in flames, and ignited two additional nearby houses.

This evening I questioned firefighters at the scene as to what the cause of the fire was, the only answer they could give was that the "fire was still under investigation." At the scene 4:00P.M. this evening were the State Police Investigation Unit, the Fire Marshall, Insurance Adjusters, and local Milford Police officers.

While authorities were mum on the fire, dislocated citizens were quick to blame the Milford Fire Department for "taking over 25 Minutes to arrive" the person living in the white house in the photo below said that "had the Milford Fire department arrived sooner, the disaster that is now in plain sight would have been limited to the abandoned house only." He claims that "Three phone calls were by himself and neighbors before they arrived."

The house where the fire started he said was "boarded up, it had no water, no electric, and no utilities. Often the plywood would be torn from the rear door and homeless people or vandals may have been illegally entering the house."

Thankfully, there was no loss of life and according to early news reports 11 people have taken shelter across the street at St. Gabriel's Church. Residents at the moment are concerned over the security of their belongings in some of the less damaged areas of their former homes. The damaged buildings were still very accessible as of this evening and measures were being discussed to allow local displaced residents back into their homes to reclaim any belongings if deemed safe to do so.

While there was no official understanding as to who was responsible for the home that caught fire, some have claimed the house may have been a "Developer owned foreclosure."

The Ct Post reported "The two-family house at 38 Laurel Ave., where the fire started, was sold in December by Roland Ruby to developer Ronald Standish for $80,000, according to city land records. The two-family house at 42 Laurel Ave. is owned by John F. and Elysa Simpson, and has an appraised value--70 percent of its market value--of $219,880."



The above photo depicts the abandoned Milford home that burned to the ground. This was the abandoned home where witnesses said the fire started. Three homes behind this home also suffered severe heat damage to the side exposed to the fire.

Anyone wishing to help the victims of this fire should contact St. Gabriels in Milford and offer their help.

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Comment Highlight, claims response time was appropriate.

Initial timeline from radio traffic
* 3:55:47 - Rescue 2 signed on
* 3:56:09 - Disp advised Batt Chief of multiple calls, fully involved. BC req 4th engine
* 3:56:25 - HQ units signed on (E1, T1)
* 3:56:28 - Sta 8 units signed on (E3, E4)
* 3:58:28 - E7 resp (4th eng)
* 3:59:00 - E3 arriving (1st on scene w/E4), gave size-up, fully involved.

That's less than 3 minutes from the time E3 signed on to the time they arrived.

The only info I don't have is the times the calls were made, but based on typical dispatch times for MFD, I'm confident there was no delay in dispatching the call.

When people are waiting for an emergency response, that 3 minutes can feel like 25 minutes.

As far as how fast the house burned, it was 4 am! People probably didn't even know it was on fire until it was almost fully involved. By they time the FD was notified and arrived, it was too late to save the initial structure and they abandoned that operation pretty quick to try save the exposures (adjacent structures).

Many of the displaced residents and neighbors kept saying in the news that there were kids and others that didn't belong there going in and out all the time, but how many reported it to the police?
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