By Aaron Leo
Connecticut Post Online
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
BRIDGEPORT — A slight odor of smoke was the first sign of trouble.
But as the smoky smell in her Coachlight Square condo unit grew stronger, Virginia Hamilton decided it would be wise to leave her home of 12 years.
Just as she did, firefighters streaked past her, up the stairs.
“They said, ‘Lady, this house is on fire! Get out right away!’ ” Hamilton recalled of events last May 1.
Hamilton heeded their order, leaving behind in her first-floor condo nearly all her belongings, including photos of her late husband William Hamilton Sr. and their two grown sons.
She banged on the door of her friend Ralph McAden, whose unit was not near the fire and was undamaged. After they ran outside, he saw the fire ravaging her North End condo.
“The flames were shooting up in the air,” he said. “The Fire Department looked like it was chasing them.” A strong wind and open attic space combined catastrophically, fueling the blaze that tore through a building that housed 19 units at the Vincellette Street complex.
In the end, Hamilton’s apartment was not consumed by the blaze, but everything was soaked from water used to douse the fire over a period of several hours. When the smoke cleared, she and 40 others were left homeless just a few hours after the fire started at 2 p.m.
A short time later, she was allowed back inside and grabbed what she could salvage from her clothing.
The rest, treasured reminders of 50 years of marriage and her family, was waterlogged and wrecked.
The entire structure was uninhabitable.
But it is rising from the ashes daily, said Hamilton, a city native, who has been biding her time in an apartment here since the fire. “The place was a heap” after the blaze, she said.
Now, she added, “You would never know that there was a fire there.”
The exterior, a combination of brick and wood, is standing, and the interior is taking shape.
The only difference between the older and new units, on the outside, is the untreated wood.
It simply looks like new construction now, Hamilton said.
But it’s what’s inside that counts. In the rebuilt section, there are more firewalls that connect with the roof, and there will be sprinkler systems and more smoke alarms.
The fire, whose cause remains under investigation by the city Fire Marshal’s office, erupted into attic space with no firewalls to block it from spreading. The structure’s second- and third-floor units were mostly destroyed as a result.
Fire Inspector Len Bonaventura, who is handling the probe, said, “It’s not uncommon for [an investigation] like this to go on for two or three years.”
Joan Nobriga’s second-floor Coachlight unit, which she owned 30 years, was damaged by fire, smoke and water.
The former Board of Education member lost four rare photos of relatives, including her grandmother, who died when Nobriga was an infant.
“I’m the only one in my family that had a picture of my grandmother,” she said.
Nobriga hopes to move into her rebuilt unit before May 1, when the insurance paying for her temporary Old Town Road apartment runs out.
Sarah Yeaton, 22, a Sacred Heart University student from New Hampshire, was more fortunate.
She shared a first-floor unit with three other students. Firefighters were able to save most of their belongings, Yeaton said. “They put our computers away from the water,” she said.
Yeaton was particularly grateful because she had an important term paper saved on her computer.
Nonetheless, she was shocked when she came home to see the roaring fire that day.
“I’ve never seen a fire like that. Probably the worst I’ve seen,” she said.
“I started hysterically crying. I couldn’t get hold of any of my roommates,” she added.
As well as leaving more than 40 Coachlight residents homeless, the fire exposed a structural defect at the condo complex, one of the first built in the city about 35 years ago.
Firestops, or walls that prevent fire from spreading into neighboring units, were not installed because Coachlight’s construction pre-dates some provisions of the city’s fire code. But following reconstruction, that part of the condo complex complies with the updated fire code, featuring standards designed to thwart fires like the one that hit Coachlight.
But other condos built in the same era as Coachlight likely have the same flaw and are at risk for similarly devastating fires, fire officials have said.
That aside, Coachlight’s fire is among the largest in recent city history, according to Bonaventura, the fire inspector.
“It’s up there in dollars and in the size of the building,” the inspector said.
It also cost the Mid-Fairfield County chapter of the American Red Cross more than $16,000 to temporarily feed, clothe and shelter displaced residents.
Another fire-safety issue was underscored by the blaze: the use of grills near multi-unit dwellings. Specifically, a propane gas-powered grill is among the factors being investigated as a possible cause of the Coachlight fire.
It prompted Fire Chief Brian Rooney to call for bringing other condos in the city into conformance with the latest fire code. He also suggested banning gas-fired or charcoal grills, or similar cooking or heating devices, from being used on a balcony or under overhanging elements of multi-family dwellings. It also would restrict placing any such devices within 10 feet of a structure.
The proposal was submitted to the City Council but the committee did not rule on it, and it hasn’t been resubmitted, several City Council members said. But Rooney wants to revive it this year.
Grills are still allowed at Coachlight as well as the nearby Fox Ledge condos.
Coachlight’s goal is to update everything, said Joyce Dollmann, president of the condo association.
Foxledge is also taking steps, starting with plugging up holes in its attic firestops. Workers running wires through the attic in the past had drilled holes in them, said Foxledge association President Joan Lambiase.
Foxledge residents would even give up their grills. “They’re prepared to do so,” she said, for the cause of fire safety.
Dollmann said work on rebuilding the fire-damaged section of Coachlight, despite the tougher code, “is going well. It’s ahead of schedule.”
Hamilton said she recently toured the site. “They have worked like beavers over there,” she said of construction crews. “The windows are in, the doors are in, the stairs are in,” she added. Despite the extensive damage caused by the Coachlight fire, the looming threat that fire could cause similar damage to other condos in the city still is not sinking in, according to Rooney.
He and other Fire Department officials have appeared at meetings of condominium associations around the city to urge residents to update their buildings. Attendance at the meetings, however, generally was sparse, he said.
But the chief is undeterred.
“We’re going to continue on,” Rooney said.
So is Hamilton, as her unit nears completion.
And despite her many losses, she will even get back some of her things. The insurance company salvaged and restored some of her furniture, and it appears reconstruction could finish sooner rather than later.
“I’m very grateful that it’s over,” Hamilton said. “I feel comfortable coming back to the same place.”