Three-alarm fire destroys Monroe home

Monroe - A three-story wood frame home at 17 Cromwell Road in the Monroe-Blooming Grove town line was destroyed in a three-alarm fire early Saturday morning. No one was home at the time; one firefighter was injured. Minutes after the 6:47 a.m. alarm was sounded, Chief Vini Tankasali of the Monroe Fire Department arrived to find that “fire was already ferociously blowing out of just about every window in the house. “Cromwell Road is not a heavily traveled road,” the chief added. “Evidently, nobody noticed the fire burning for quite some time, which allowed the fire to get a tremendous head-start on us. “ The fire was discovered by the next-door neighbor, who was awakened by the sound of crackling from the fire and called 911. First arriving firefighters fought feverishly to prevent the fire from spreading to other nearby houses. Radiant heat was severe and burning embers were landing as far away as Cromwell Hill Road. A third alarm was sounded, bringing aid from neighboring departments in Chester, South Blooming Grove, Tuxedo, Washingtonville and Salisbury Mills. In all, 50 firefighters operated at the scene, another 30 assisted with the water tanker operations and firefighters from eight companies assisted. Because the fire occurred in a section of the town that does not have fire hydrants, tankers were called in to supply water. There’s no municipal water system in this section of the Town of Monroe, so residents rely on wells. Each tanker truck holds between 2,500 and 3,000 gallons of water. All told, the chief said, water from eight tanker trucks were needed. Half the water was pulled from Walton Lake, the other half from hydrants in the Village of Monroe, with the tanker drivers taking turns filling up and then dispersing the water. “The men did a great job,” Tankasali said. “It was only through their efforts that the fire didn’t jump to other homes in the area. This was a hard fire to fight because it was fully involved before we even got there. The delay in notification was a huge disadvantage to us.” One firefighter suffered a minor injury. He was transported by Monroe EMS to the Arden Hill campus of Orange Regional Medical Center where he was treated and released. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Information for this story was provided by Jason Kalter.