Millbury house, leveled by fire, was no stranger to town officials – Worcester Telegram

Kim Ring Telegram & Gazette Staff @kimringtg

MILLBURY - For more than a decade, frustrated neighbors have been asking the town to force the owners of 158 Wheelock Ave. to clean up the property.

Now the house has been reduced to a pile of rubble, after a raging fire ripped through the structure just before midnight Tuesday.

The blaze consumed the house and charred a second house nearby. Two other houses suffered heat damage, leaving the siding looking as though it was dripping off the walls. Fire Chief Richard Hamilton was treated for heat exhaustion and dehydration, and was recovering at home Wednesday morning. There were no other injuries.

The call for the fire came in at 11:50 p.m., and a dispatcher described the home to those responding as "boarded up" as they raced to the scene. They arrived to find the home engulfed in flames and replied to the dispatcher that they felt they were about to lose a second house to the blaze.

Neighbors could hear explosions, and the dispatcher radioed that she was being told the house had "blown up."

Stephen Herriage was among those who ran toward the fire, only to be turned back by the intense heat.

"It was so hot," Mr. Herriage said in an interview Wednesday morning. "You couldnt get near it ... but when the ladder truck got here, thats when they really were able to get a lot of water on it."

The fire came as no surprise to Debbie Gemme, whose family lives nearby.

"When I drove by here yesterday I was thinking, 'This house really is a fire hazard,' " she said. "When you drove by you could just see the addition they had built was full of stuff ... I was surprised that people could even live in this house."

Cars, mowers, a hot tub and an assortment of what some simply called "junk" have accumulated and the yard had become an eyesore.

A stack of files, 4 inches thick, details the struggle the town has had with homeowner Dawn Haigis. One of the earliest interactions is from 2006, when Ms. Haigis failed to meet a deadline to complete a cleanup at the property. More recently, the Fire Department paid a visit and issued a ticket after outside burning was reported by a neighbor.

For years the town and Ms. Haigis would wrangle over things including unregistered cars on the property.

"We would write tickets and they would get the cars registered," Town Manager David J. Marciello said. The same was true of building projects, which would be started without permits and when the town learned of the work, permits were sought, essentially buying more time, during which most of the work remained undone, he said.

Mr. Marciello has made a push for the cleanup of ill-kept properties in town,encouraging voters to adopt a state law, Chapter 40U, which would allow the town to request a court-appointed receiver who would assume responsibility for repairing and cleaning up properties that are in serious violation of health, building, sanitation and fire codes and have other problems. The fire, he said, is an example of why the law is needed.

Still, the process can take years, as evidenced by what's happened over a decade with the Wheelock Avenue property, he said.

"We can only use the tools we have available," he said. "And sometimes, it can take a long time."

In 2012, notes from a file in Town Hall indicate, officials were happy with a cleanup of the property. In November, a note in the file reads, "More maintenance has been done. Improved. Work in progress." The next note reads, "Case closed." But neighbors said the debris continued to pile up.

At one point, officials used in their investigation an aerial photograph showing debris piled around the house and near an in-ground swimming pool - something Ms. Haigis apparently sought a variance for after it was installed. Another document indicates that police were asked to increase patrols in the area to try to determine who might be dumping petroleum products into a nearby storm drain. A trail of the oily substance seemed to come from 158 Wheelock Ave. and the document notes that auto repairs were being done at the home.

One of the last interactions with Ms. Haigis before the fire was a letter she sent to the Board of Health and the building inspector detailing a punch list of items she planned to have completed by the end of June.

"1. Clean out material not needed. 2. Evaluate the house for deterioration. 3. Repair house trim/softets (sic). 4. Installing installation (sic). 5. Prepare house for vinyl siding," she wrote. But the projects had not been completed and she had been warned that the town planned to turn the matter over to the state attorney general this week, Mr. Marciello said.

On Wednesday,after the fire, the house lot was surrounded by temporary fencing and covered with plastic draping. The men doing the work taped themselves into plastic suits. Mr. Marciello said precautions were taken because the house was built during a time when asbestos might have been used.

During the fire, crews were hampered by wind and the intensity of the blaze. Propane tanks "off-gassing" nearby fed the fire, and Deputy Fire Chief David Rudge said multiple propane tanks along the side of the house exploded.

The three-alarm blaze brought firefighters from Uxbridge, Upton, Grafton, Sutton, Auburn, Shrewsbury, Westboro, Leicester and Oxford, who assisted either in battling the blaze or by covering the fire station while crews were working.

The state fire marshal's office and Assistant Fire Chief Robert Silva are trying to determine the cause of the fire.

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Millbury house, leveled by fire, was no stranger to town officials - Worcester Telegram