Early morning blaze causes $150K in damages

By Jennifer Huberdeau
Posted: 04/23/2009 12:12:37 AM EDT




NORTH ADAMS -- A pile of charred sports trophies and swimming medals that once adorned the bedroom of Drury High School athlete David Button are all that’s left of his room after an early morning fire ripped through a portion of his family’s Foucher Avenue home on Wednesday.

The blaze destroyed the contents of his room and heavily damaged the rest of the house.

"We’re still investigating the cause of the fire, but there’s about $150,000 worth of damage at least," Fire Director Stephen Meranti said. "It’s going to take months and massive renovations to bring this house back. What wasn’t damaged by the fire was damaged by smoke and water. They are only going to be able to salvage a few of their possessions. The son’s room was completely destroyed."

No one was hurt in the fire, thanks to an alert neighbor, he said.

Transcript City Editor Margaret Button and her son, David, 18, a senior and star athlete at Drury, were asleep when the fire broke out. Button’s husband, Guy, had headed out to work at 5:30 a.m., about 40 minutes prior to the fire, Meranti said.

"Their neighbor, Dick Belini, saw the fire on the back porch and woke Maggy and her son up and got them out of the building," he said. "When he called the fire in, at 6:10 a.m., it was on the back porch. As we were en route, we received multiple calls that the fire had moved inside the house."

He said the fire had


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advertisement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quickly spread into the house, making its way into the living room through a sliding glass door and into David Button’s bedroom through a window on the side of the house.
Firefighters were able to contain the fire and extinguish it quickly once on the scene, he said.

"We’re very lucky the neighbor saw the fire," Meranti said. "The fire spread through the window right onto David’s bed. Had he been asleep Š I’d hate to think what would have happened."

The blackened mattress sat outside the house in the back yard, next to a fire-damaged snowmobile, charred remnants of video games and other melted and blackened items, as an inspector from the state fire marshal’s office walked through debris on the back porch Wednesday afternoon.

The Buttons, who were at the house speaking to the fire inspector, declined to comment.

Meranti said he had not yet interviewed Belini but assumed the neighbor had been getting ready for work when he saw the fire.

"We were able to knock out the fire pretty quickly," Meranti said. "It’s pretty devastating. They’ve lost a majority of their personal possessions."

He said the Red Cross was called to the scene, but the family is temporarily staying with friends.

To reach Jennifer Huberdeau, e-mail jhuberdeau@thetranscript.com.