Belmont Fire: no known cause

The fire that destroyed a single-family home at 16 Nelson Court on Monday has been found accidental and of undetermined cause, Deputy Fire Chief James Davis said yesterday. Members of the Lakes Region Fire and Explosive Task Force, accompanied by Fire Inspector John Southwell of the New Hampshire Fire Marshal's office, combed the site the day after the fire, but failed to discover the source of the fire. On Tuesday afternoon the remnants of the building, which posed a hazard to passers-by, were leveled. Davis said that firefighters "dug all day again Wednesday, but came up with nothing." Davis said the home was heated by an oil furnace supplemented by a woodstove. "We were not able to determine what was running at the time of the fire," he said.

Turning to the fire itself, Davis lauded the firefighters for confining all serious damage to the one building. "When I heard Nelson Court," he said, "I knew we'd have our hands full because the buildings are so close together and there's not much room for equipment. The first crew tried to make an attack through the back of the house," he continued, "but the heat drove us right out.

"The Laconia ladder truck saved the day," Davis said, explaining that pouring water into the building from above, "cooled the fire down." Otherwise, he said, the radiant heat from the blaze could have spread the fire by igniting curtains and blinds inside adjacent buildings, particularly a large frame apartment house less than ten yards away. Davis said that the heat melted siding, blinds and curtains on the apartment building, without, however, sparking a fire. "We could have lost more buildings," he said.