Fire Destroys Historic Main Street Barn, House Next-Door

A fire that some residents said appeared to have started in a truck burned down a 19th century barn and heavily damaged a house next door at about 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, officials said.

No one appeared to have been injured from the blaze.

The blaze destroyed a barn off of 46 Main St. and spread to a two-family house situated inches away at 4 East St., forcing five people to flee from their homes, residents and officials said.

Bryan McSweeney, 61, was inside his East Street home when he heard a sound that he thought had come from his son's room.

"We heard what sounded like an explosion," McSweeney said.

But then there was an urgent knock on the door and a boy who lives next door with his mother and other sibling told McSweeney the two-family house was on fire, he said.

"I was in my pajamas," McSweeney said, adding he got dressed and by the time he got outside, the flames had begun swallowing the roof of his tenant's apartment.

The boy's family rents the apartment from McSweeney, he said. The two families gathered their belongings and walked to the other side of East Street to watch as the firefighters worked to bring the blaze under control, McSweeney said.

"We took the dog out and took along a few things," he said.

Meanwhile, at 46 Main St., Karen Nagy, 27, was in bed taking a nap when she saw a glow from the barn in the back of the property owned by the family of her boyfriend, Bob Miller. She alerted Miller and by the time he reached the barn, the structure was well on fire.

Miller said he suspected the fire may have begun in a 1997 Dodge diesel truck that he had parked near the barn. After he saw that the fire was destroying the barn, he tried to reach the vehicle to move it, but saw that the fire had broken the windows and was emanating high heat, Miller said.

Miller said he had just removed an alternator from the pickup so that a friend of his could use it to rebuild an identical Dodge truck and then parked the vehicle next to the barn.

"I had just come in from outside shortly thereafter that," he said.

The barn held antiques, such as a sled from the 1800s as well as antique dental equipment, car parts and other belongings, Miller and Nagy said.

Deputy Fire Marshal Rich Frampton said that he intended to return to the scene in the morning to do further investigation.