During the last week of February 2010, we were toned out for two first alarm fires in town, both at about 6 AM. On Monday, we had a report of a fire behind a chimney in a house on North Road. Fire was showing on both the interior and exterior of the ell upon our arrival, and the fire flashed over through out the entire room before hose lines were brought to the door. An aggressive attack kept the worst of the fire damage to the ell, although the rest of the house suffered some smoke and water damage. Three Hancock firefighters were injured in the first 15 minutes of the incident, but only one required hospitalization and surgery for a badly broken wrist. These photos show the damage inside after the room's contents were removed, and the exterior damage in the area of the chimney. A corroded woodstove thimble was determined to be the cause of the fire. We are thankful to the fire departments of Antrim, Bennington, Greenfield, Peterborough and Dublin for their help at this incident.
On Friday of that week, we had another first alarm to a house on Depot Road. An overheated woodstove with a Metalbestos chimney had ignited the ceiling joists above the stove. The first crew squeezed through a tight attic hatch with their air-packs, and carefully dug through mounds of loose insulation to find the burning timbers and extinguish the fire without flowing too much water. Although we had to tear down a section of the ceiling, damage was limited to the area around the stove. Once again, Mutual Aid towns responded to Hancock, but this time we did not require their help. We figured that our trucks brought 6,000 gallons of water to the scene, but we used about three or four gallons. A Carbon Monoxide detector gave the occupants their first warning that something was wrong; they are very fortunate to have discovered the fire when they did, as it was only minutes away from spreading throughout the entire attic.
