BATH

A Bath home was badly damaged Saturday afternoon after heat from a chimney sparked a fire in the walls that spread through the two-story home.

Firefighters were called to the home at 1270 High St., at 4:17 p.m. where Charles Nace lives with his wife, Avis Nace.

Charles Nace said he was sitting in the living room alone while his wife
and granddaughter were out walking the dogs when an upstairs smoke
alarm sounded.

“I went upstairs and there was smoke on the second floor so I came down
and called the fire department and we all just came outside and just
waited for the fire department. They were here within five
minutes,” said Nace. 
When firefighters arrived, Nace said he took a firefighter to
the second floor and showed him how to access the attic which also was
filled with smoke. The firefighter confirmed there was a fire, he said,
“and they did what they do. They’re very good what they do.”


Nace has a
wood stove but the fire in it was out, he said, adding it will be up to
the fire department to determine what happened. He had just installed
the smoke alarm earlier this month.

“Nobody was in the house; everybody was out so no one was hurt or anything like that,” Nace said.

Bath Fire Chief Steve Hinds said Saturday the preliminary cause of the
fire was a chimney fire. It appears the fire started on the first floor
in the area of the chimney and stove, in the walls, which spread to the
second floor and attic. The house, like all homes of the same era, was
built with what firefighters call a balloon construction, Hinds said.
The walls were but together from the sill near the basement all the way
into the attic, so there are no “fire stops.”

It is more challenging to fight fires in these homes, Hinds said,
“because the fire runs, what we call ‘chase;’ chases all over the
place.” Firefighters ran multiple water lines in the house and by
cutting a hole in the roof, it gave the building an opportunity for
smoke and heat to rise out through the hole, giving firefighters
visibility and allowing them to find where the fire was, Hinds said. Even
though the homeowners didn’t have a fire in their wood stove Saturday,
Hinds said the stove is a high-quality appliance that can retain heat,
“and these things can break out at any time.”

Hinds said this morning that firefighters put a weight in the chimney to
clear a blockage they found. Issues with the chimney and the blockage
pushed heat into the walls which caused the fire.

The home is considered gutted, Hinds said Saturday, but it can be
repaired. Every room has some water, smoke and fire damage, though some
rooms sustained more damage than others. He estimated it took crews
about 20 minutes to knock down the fire, and then it was a matter of
extinguishing hot spots.

“The crews did a very good job,” Hinds said.

Bath Fire Department was assisted on scene by Brunswick and West Bath
Fire Departments. Phippsburg and Woolwich crews covered the station.

Nace and his wife moved into the home in 1995. As firefighters worked
Saturday, Charles Nace said the house is insured and said, “The building
can be replaced. Whatever the damage is, that can be replaced and I’m
just glad we were all out of the house and nobody was hurt.”

Nace is pastor of the Bath Foursquare Gospel Church on Center Street in
Bath. The couple had already received calls offering them a place to
stay and neighbors had offered to helped as well.

According to the Bath assessing website, the home was built in 1940 and the structures are worth $133,300.