By Alec O’Meara
The Union Leader Correspondent
LONDONDERRY, N.H. — The renaming of Spring Road may leap ahead of other roads following a delay in mutual aid response to a fire that leveled a home on Sunday, injuring the occupant.
The fire was at 55 Spring Road, a dead-end drive only accessible via Trolley Car Lane. However, two tanker trucks from other communities drove to a second Spring Road in town, one that connects to Hardy Road. Town maps show the two portions can be connected by a third road, but the half-mile center section is a class VI road that was never developed or maintained by the town. As a result, two separate Spring Roads exist, Town Assessor Karen Marchant said.
“I’ve been in town for 20 years, and the two pieces had been separate for as long as I can remember,” Marchant said.
While Londonderry firefighters drove directly to the scene of the fire, the delay of mutual aid tankers was a factor in putting the fire down, firefighters said. The home’s remote location and a lack of nearby hydrants also added to the challenge of containing the fire, Capt. Darren O’Brien of Londonderry Fire said. Initial 911 calls reporting the fire came from motorists and neighbors, not the homeowner, O’Brien said. The homeowner, listed as Bob Simmons, suffered burns to his hands and wrists trying to put the fire out on his own, O’Brien said.
In a report given to the Town Council earlier this year, 55 Spring Road was one of approximately 1,500 properties in town identified as at risk for an error in 911 response due to confusion over the address. Roughly two-thirds of the lots, which include homes on approximately 50 streets with duplicate or like-sounding names, will be renamed by the summer of 2011 to comply with state standards for 911 street names, Marchant said. The renaming project was approved by the Town Council in August.
To-date, five streets have been renamed, two of which, Jefferson Drive and Cedar Drive, were duplicate names in town just like Spring Road, Marchant said. Spring Road was not likely to be renamed until later in the process, Marchant said. As one of the older roads in town, the Spring Roads had been considered one of the more challenging renaming projects due to personal attachments to the name, she said. The task force agreed to begin its work with smaller roads before moving to more densely populated streets.
“We will likely have to have a meeting, get everyone together and decide which portion retains the name and which portion gets an entirely new name,” Marchant said. ‘We may move it forward while this fire is fresh in many of the homeowners’ minds.”
Six more changes scheduled for public hearings in January, Marchant said, include East and West Eglin Drive, East and West Woodbine Drive and East and West Yellowstone Drive will each be merged and renumbered as Eglin Drive, Woodbine Drive and Yellowstone Drive.
The cause of the Spring Road fire remains under investigation by the Londonderry Fire Department.
Copyright 2009 Union Leader Corp.
All Rights Reserved