A fire that made a Weare home uninhabitable is suspected to have been started by a brush fire that was not thoroughly extinguished the night before.
Weare fire Chief Robert Vezina said a brush fire at 189 Deering Center Road on Friday rekindled the next afternoon, and the fire eventually reached the 1½-story home about 100 feet away.
At 1:44 p.m., firefighters respond to callers reporting a smoky smell in the area of Deering Center Road. The house in flames is set back down a 100-foot driveway and is not visible from the main road. Vezina said it took the crew about 20 minutes to find the fire, which he guesses had been burning for about an hour.
The fire had made its way across the lot from the brush pile and was burning up a side of the house when firefighters arrived. No one was injured.
It took about two hours to put down the blaze, Vezina said. Crews from Henniker, Bow, New Boston and Goffstown arrived in support.
Much of the building was saved, according to a fire department press release, but the home was deemed unlivable. Vezina said the department had turned the scene over to Weare police and did not know the status of the family that lives there. Nobody was home during the fire.
Officials concluded the brush fire contained materials that were larger than what is permitted. The New Hampshire Division of Forests and Lands permits pieces no larger than 5 inches to be burned.
“It takes too long (for fire) to consume that size of material,” Vezina said. “That was the root cause of the issue.”
Weare police said an investigation into the fire is ongoing.
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3309, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)