About an hour after a three-alarm blaze had been doused by firefighters Wednesday morning in Pittsfield, Willis Hayes, his cheeks smudged with soot, emerged from the front door of the charred building carrying his snowboard and a photo album.
His wife, Sarah Hayes, walking down the stairs at eight Depot Street, close behind Willis, held their wedding photos.
“That’s about it, as much as we’re going to be able to save,” Sarah said. “My clothes smell like smoke, so I don’t think there’s anything we can do about that.”
No one was seriously hurt, but little else if anything was salvageable from their home or the other two apartments above a hot-tub repair business.
Pittsfield received the emergency call just past 7:30 a.m. and was joined by crews from nine other stations: Loudon, Belmont, Barnstead, Strafford, Northwood, Concord, Epsom, Pembroke and Gilmanton.
The fire left the two-story building with blackened brick, broken windows and a Cadillac parked out front with its hood and driver’s-side door burnt as well.
Pittsfield Fire Chief Peter Pszonowsky said five people escaped from the three upstairs apartments. Two were taken by ambulance to the hospital with smoke inhalation.
The Scenic Theater next door, home to the Pittsfield Players, suffered only exterior damage after its white-house siding, in close proximity to the burning apartment building, was soaked by firefighters, leaving the material peeling from the wall, but saving the historic theater that proudly announces at its apex that it was built in 1914.
Firefighters also worried about the power lines stretching across the front of the building. The electricity was shut down over an area that reached Pittsfield Middle High School.
“The flames were moving right into the power lines going up to the second floor,” Pszonowsky said. “We had to have it shut down.”
Two other buildings on the short strip, between Lafayette and Carroll streets, were not damaged at all, despite the fact that the structures were old and highly susceptible to serious fire damage.
The apartment building that burned had sprinklers, but the other three on the street did not.
“Looking at the building and fire dynamics, this is the only one with a sprinkler, and it could have been 10 times worse, because if another one catches, they all catch,” Pszonowsky said. “The heat was melting the side (of the Scenic Theater) and that in turn would have started a fire there, so we stopped that progression and just kept it to this building.”
The cause of the fire was still under investigation Wednesday. The Red Cross is expected to relocate the victims who need help.
Meanwhile, Willis and Sarah Hayes are moving in with his mother in Alton, at least for the time being.
“Shock and sadness,” Sarah said. “That’s what we feel right now.”