By Matthew Spolar
The Concord Monitor
PITTSFIELD, N.H. — While driving his taxi Saturday night, Pittsfield Selectman Don Chase spied smoke coming from a Foss Avenue home and ended up saving three residents from a devastating two-alarm fire.
Just after 7 p.m., homeowner Rose Judd and her 40-year-old daughter Nancy were watching television in the living room when authorities suspect clothes in Nancy’s bedroom caught fire on a space heater, Pittsfield fire Lt. Nick Abell said.
Upstairs, Nancy’s 11-month-old granddaughter was sleeping in her crib.
“They were unaware their house was on fire,” Abell said. “They didn’t have working smoke detectors.”
Meanwhile, Chase, owner of Don’s Taxi, had just picked up resident Rob McAnney and was taking him to Danis Super Market.
“I’m coming down over Factory Hill . . . and I just glanced off to the left and saw heavy black smoke,” Chase said.
Chase, 59, parked outside 17 Foss Ave. and ran around back and found Nancy’s bedroom — and the 400-pound propane tank outside it — engulfed in flames. McAnney kicked in the front door and alerted Judd and Nancy, Chase said.
One of the women went upstairs to retrieve the baby, and all three escaped without injury. Chase said the smoke spread quickly to the upstairs bedroom where the infant was sleeping.
“If she’d been there a few minutes longer — I don’t really want to think about it,” he said.
Abell said the department was not allowed to release the occupants’ names, but Chase was able to identify Judd and Nancy because, about seven months ago, he had been living in the house. He did not know Nancy’s last name.
Chase, who was elected selectman earlier this month, previously drove taxis for a company owned by Judd’s husband, Fred, and he said he lived with the couple until just before Fred died from cancer last year.
That experience with the home helped Saturday, Chase said. After Judd, Nancy and Nancy’s granddaughter were outside, he went back inside and retrieved the family’s three Jack Russell terriers.
“They know me because I used to live there,” he said. “They followed me out the door.”
The family’s three cats were unable to be rescued, Chase said. McAnney is taking care of the three dogs, he added.
As the first fire engine approached the home, firefighters could see smoke and flames through the woods and signaled a second alarm, Abell said. About 50 firefighters from nine other departments responded.
It took about 2 1/2 hours to put the fire completely out, at which point the home had been totally destroyed, Abell said.
Extinguishing the blaze took “considerably longer . . . than an average fire” due to the igniting of propane released from the tank next to Nancy’s room and flames traveling through “void spaces” created by an addition to the 170-year-old home, Abell said.
A Concord-area Red Cross group reported meeting with Judd, Nancy and Nancy’s granddaughter and providing financial assistance for clothing and food. Abell said they are staying with various family members nearby.
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