Sandwich police chief loses home in fire

The home of Sandwich police chief Shawn Varney went up in flames on Tuesday evening.

“We were initially called at 5:21 p.m.,” Tuftonboro Fire Chief Adam Thompson said. “We had eight different departments besides ourselves that were present.”

Fortunately for the Varney family, no human beings were present when the fire occurred. The same, unfortunately, could not be said for the pets. 

“There was the loss of a dog and two cats. We did recover the dog, but we haven’t recovered the cats.” 

According to Thompson, the fire was being investigated by the state fire marshal's office until early Wednesday morning. The Daily Sun reached out to the fire marshal's office and is awaiting a response regarding the conclusion of the investigation.

Thompson explained that there was no nearby water source at the site of the house fire, thus extra engines were needed. “We tanked water from pier 19, which is about a mile away. We have an area there that has a water source that is open year round. We keep it bubbled for cases like this.”

The chief explained that bubbling refers to sealing off a portion of a water supply to keep it from freezing by using an ice eater.

Wolfeboro Fire Chief Tom Zotti said that his department sent an engine and three crew members to assist in Tuesday's operation.

“As you can imagine, that is a very labor intensive operation, if they were indeed doing a water shuttle, filling a truck at a draw sight, and driving back, you might have four, five or even six trucks doing that.”

Wolfeboro and Tuftonboro are both members of the Ossipee Valley Mutual Aid Association.

“The goal is, you call us, we’ll provide any resources we can,” said Zotti. “Monday night we had chimney fire in town, and Tuftonboro came to us.”

As for the Varney family, they are staying with other family members, and have received a generous outpouring of support from the community.  Moultonborough resident Sarah Shannon set up a GoFundMe fundraiser for the family.

After personally witnessing the fire, Shannon decided she had to do something. 

“It was very hard to watch. While I was there, I wanted to start the GoFundMe to start raising money because they literally lost everything. I wanted to be able to help them out, and that’s the quickest way that I thought about.”

Shannon originally set the GoFundMe goal to $30,00. As of Wednesday afternoon, the fundraiser raised over $51,000.

“It’s very heartwarming to see,” said Shannon. “I wasn’t expecting it to blow up. I just set the limit for enough to get back on their feet and get the essentials. I definitely wasn’t expecting it to be like this.”

Shannon also mentioned that another member of the community took the family clothes shopping on Wednesday. As for the GoFundMe, Shannon stated that she intends to keep it up for at least a week and a half. To learn more about the fundraiser, visit gofundme.com/f/help-the-varney-family-back-on-their-feet.