Burning down the house: Tear-down provides fire training and a new home site
Aug. 20, 2022 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
A more than century-old home in Duxbury gave two dozen local firefighters intense firsthand training recently when they held a controlled burn exercise on one of the hottest Saturdays of the summer.
Some 25 volunteer firefighters from Waterbury and Stowe and a tanker truck crew from Waitsfield converged at the end of Atwood Drive on Aug. 6. Heat and humidity pushed the heat index well into the 90s but that didn’t deter the exercise that involves much advance planning, explained Waterbury Fire Chief Gary Dillon.
“We don’t get that many opportunities. It takes a number of months to plan,” he said.
In this case, the small wood frame house built around the turn of the 20th century was intended to be demolished for new property owners to build a new barn and home on the site.
For a structure to be considered for a training burn, Dillon said, multiple permits are required and demolition needs to be in progress. Inspections for and removal of any hazardous building materials such as asbestos are needed. In this case, Dillon noted, asbestos caulking was found around windows and near a chimney. “They had to remove the windows beforehand,” he said.
Items such as shingles and carpeting and other interior elements were removed so as not to be burned, he noted.
Fire department training officer Kyle Guyette said these details were done well in advance with the burn date scheduled in June.
This particular home had multiple small rooms which posed useful challenges to practice. “It’s as real-life training as you can get,” Dillon said.
Given the hot weather conditions, monitoring those involved in the exercise was particularly important. Part of the setup involved having cooling fans, ice water on hand to soak towels for people to use during breaks.
Waterbury Ambulance Service had personnel on hand to do baseline blood pressure, oxygen and temperature checks on each participant and another round midway through the exercise, Dillon said.
Despite the conditions and wearing and carrying about 70 pounds of protective gear and equipment, everyone managed without any medical issues, Dillon said.
Auxiliary members from the Waterbury and Stowe departments also set up to provide lunch for the crews.
After inspecting the premises, the exercise proceeded over several hours with crews divided into groups that rotated through the house. Dillon said fire department members aren’t required to participate, but he asks that everyone who is available takes part. For some of the department’s newest members, the training was the first time they used an air pack and practiced interior firefighting.
When it’s over the property owner has much less debris to haul away from the demolition. In this case, new owners Jason and Kate Butler have a new home already under construction. Contractor Matthew Sargent of Bluebird Group builders has begun work on a barn that will be followed by a two-story single-family post-and-beam home that will be attached.
The family with four children will move from Warren to Duxbury into what will be a modest, quality, comfortable new home built to last another century, Sargent said. “They need more space,” he said.