CRANSTON, R.I. — The damage done by a Sunday morning fire that destroyed a Seven Mile Road barn and killed many animals was so complete that it’s unlikely investigators will be able to say for certain what caused the blaze, city Fire Marshal Stephen MacIntosh said Monday.
CRANSTON, R.I. — The damage done by a Sunday morning fire that destroyed a Seven Mile Road barn and killed many animals was so complete that it’s unlikely investigators will be able to say for certain what caused the blaze, city Fire Marshal Stephen MacIntosh said Monday.
The barn was home to three horses, three ponies, four dogs and an undetermined number of rabbits and goats, all of which are believed to have been killed in the fire, MacIntosh said.
The barn burned to the ground, he said, destroying all evidence of how the fire started.
“We can’t even look at an electrical panel, because it’s gone,” he said.
The circumstances were similar to a Dec. 28 barn fire in Simsbury, Connecticut, where 24 horses died in an electrical fire at Folly Farm. According to the Hartford Courant, investigators there believe the fire started from an electrical outlet that the staff had used to plug in portable heaters.
MacIntosh said there is no evidence that was the cause of the Sunday fire in Cranston, but he cautioned those who use portable heaters to follow directions carefully and to never use extension cords.
The fire at 765 Seven Mile Rd. was reported at about 9:30 a.m. Sunday, MacIntosh said. The smoke from it was visible from the department’s Scituate Avenue fire station, about three miles away, he said. By the time firefighters arrived, MacIntosh said, the flames had already penetrated the barn’s roof.
The barn and its location posed particular challenges for the firefighters, he said. It was a large wooden structure with a cavernous interior that would hold a lot of air to feed a fire. The barn contained hay for the horses to eat and wood shavings to line the floors of their stalls, MacIntosh said. The interior may also have had wood dust in the air, which could have ignited if the fire got hot enough.
Fire trucks got to the barn, he said, but the nearest hydrant was half a mile down the road. That one water main was serving all the trucks, he said, so every time a new truck connected to it, the pressure, and range of how far the water from it would go, decreased.
And the water had to be kept flowing, he said, to prevent the frigid temperatures from freezing the water in the hoses.
Tanker trucks couldn't make up the shortfall. For instance, the Scituate Fire Department sent a 3,000-gallon truck, but at around 650 gallons a minute, he said that only lasted about four minutes.
Once firefighters realized the barn was doomed, the main effort switched to protecting the 1860s-era house that was about 15 feet from the blaze, he said. That effort was aided by wind that blew the heat and fire away from the house, he said.
The blaze was brought under control in about an hour, he said, but fire crews have revisited the site repeatedly to put out hot spots.
— jhill@providencejournal.com
(401) 277-7381
On Twitter: @jghilliii