Home Destroyed
By Two Fires

By Sandy Vondrasek

Firefighters from five towns were able to contain a "suspicious" fire at a home on South Royalton’s Oxbow Road Friday afternoon, but, undetected, the home burned to the ground within the next 12 hours.

Royalton Fire Chief David Whitney said this week that when his department was called back to the scene at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, "There was nothing left—it was totally destroyed."

No one was injured in the fire; homeowner Adam L. Hadlock, 29, was out-of-town at the time.

Both Whitney and Det. Sgt. Fred Cornell, the state police fire investigator assigned to the double fire, said this week that the second fire may have been a "rekindle."

Both fires remain under investigation.

Det. Sgt. Cornell said yesterday that he hadn’t yet "formed a hypothesis" on the first fire, which he has labeled suspicious. In his initial report on the Friday fire, Cornell asked anyone with any information on the to call state police at 234-9933 or VATAP (Vermont Arson Tip Award Program) at 1-800-32Arson.

However, he emphasized yesterday that he has not yet concluded whether the first fire was arson. He said formal determination of the cause is pending lab results and the receipt of other information.

Cornell added that he was "leaning toward" determining the second fire as a rekindle.

The Friday fire was reported at about 4:10 p.m., by someone quite a distance from the fire—on Route 14 near the Ainsworth farm, according to Det. Sgt. Cornell.

Royalton Fire Chief Whitney noted that his department arrived to find the south end of the home "pretty fully involved." Departments from Barnard, East Barnard, Sharon, and Tunbridge responded, as well.

"We ran tanker relays, because there was no water on top of the mountain," Chief Whitney noted.

"The responding fire departments did a great job in containing the fire," Det. Sgt. Cornell noted in his report of the Friday fire.

At that point, Cornell said, fire damage was mostly limited to the roof, plus there was significant water and smoke damage.

Firefighters—and fire investigators—were on the scene until about 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Chief Whitney said.

When his department was called out again the next morning—this report came from a neighbor—they found the structure leveled.

In his re-examination of the site after the second fire, Cornell said, "I did not find anything to indicate that anyone went back to restart the fire."

"Rekindles are common, despite the best efforts of fire departments," he commented.

By way of illustrating the persistence of structural fires, Cornell noted that he found a small fire in a corner in the basement Tuesday, three days after the Saturday fire.

Chief Whitney said Hadlock told him he was staying with a friend. Hadlock declined to comment, when contacted by The Herald yesterday.