By Annemarie Timmins
The Concord Monitor (New Hampshire)
CONCORD, NH — Fire destroyed a Garvins Falls Road home yesterday, leaving four people homeless and killing a pair of pet tortoises. Had a Unitil worker not noticed the blaze, flames may have also claimed the nearby garage, fire officials said.
The cause is still under investigation.
The Concord home, at 173 Garvins Falls Road, was owned by Matthew Alosa, 43, who also owns the Boars Head Tavern in Loudon. He shared the place with his girlfriend, Shae Gaborault, and two friends who rented, Jim Latravrse and Seth Garzinski.
All were arranging to stay with friends because nothing was left of the home.
Alosa said he’s typically home in the mornings, but he wasn’t yesterday when the fire started, because he was giving his father a ride to Warner. When his cell phone rang just before 11 a.m. with news of the fire, Alosa turned around. He walked down his driveway to find his home gone. He told reporters his greatest losses were sentimental, not financial.
He and his girlfriend got the pair of Russian tortoises, named Boris and Natasha, about nine years ago after their dog died. Not wanting to relive the painful loss of a pet, they got the tortoises, Alosa said, because they live to be 150.
The house, too, had meaning, he said.
Alosa said he moved the two-story home from Manchester Street to its remote spot on Garvins Falls Road about 10 years ago because he loved its kitchen. It had a wood floor and ceiling and stainless- steel appliances and countertops. He described it yesterday as an antique, with odd-sized drawers and pullout butcher blocks. He loved the character so much he pulled a digital camera from his pocket yesterday to show reporters recent pictures of it.
Alosa got the house when his uncle bought the Manchester Street property for a business venture. The house had to go, Alosa said, and he was happy to oblige.
Latravrse, 42, who began renting a room from Alosa in July, left work and rushed to the property yesterday when he heard about the fire.
His biggest concern was the loss of his 2003 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, he said. He’d been storing it in the house’s basement, not the garage, because the basement was heated.
He had some hope he would be able to salvage the bike, but his hope diminished as he watched firefighters dousing what was left of the basement with water. Latravrse said he’d recently done some remodeling inside the home in place of paying a security deposit.
“It’s all gone now,” he said yesterday.
The blaze proved challenging for firefighters yesterday because the nearest hydrant was at least a quarter mile away, Lt. Ken Kiehl said. That meant crews had to pull water from the hydrant into a pump and then relay it to crews closer to the scene, Kiehl said. The operation required crews to lay nearly 2,000 feet of hose, far more than in most fires, he said.
Crews were also hampered because the fire got a good head start on them. The home sits far off the road, and the fire wasn’t reported until a Unitil employee working in the area saw it about 10:45 a.m., Kiehl said.
By the time firefighters arrived seven minutes later, the house was already gone and flames were threatening the garage.
Crews saved that building.
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