Sixteen dogs perished in a Thanksgiving afternoon fire in Brookfield, Fire Chief David Masirovits said.
No humans were home at the time the blaze broke out. Firefighters were called at 4:55 p.m.
Jessica Schlumberger owns the home at 6716 Stewart Sharon Road, and the Schlumberger family was planning to stay with other family members, Masirovits said.
”The house is uninhabitable,” he said. “It’s not necessarily a total loss but pretty extensive and heavy fire damage in the basement and then that back corner of the home.”
A state fire marshal visited the scene and was to return Nov. 24 to continue the investigation, Masirovits said, adding that he did not believe the cause was suspicious.
“It started in the basement and then it broke through a basement window and up to the first floor, through a window and up through the eaves to the attic,” he said. “At one point we had the fire completely knocked down and then there was hidden fire up in the attic that flared back up.”
Masirovits lives next door to Schlumberger, and a neighbor alerted him to the fire. The on-duty firefighters had already been dispatched, he said.
“I spent the first few minutes making sure that nobody was in the house,” Masirovits said. “The neighbor that notified me was actually on the phone with the homeowner, so she verified that no humans were in the house.
I went up and banged on the door and tried to get the dogs to bark but when they didn’t, the house was so full of smoke, there was nothing I could do to save them at that point.”
No human injuries were reported.
Brookfield was assisted by firefighters from Hubbard, Vienna, Fowler and Sharon.
@@@
Update from our February 2024 edition:
The state fire marshal’s office has closed its investigation of a Thanksgiving Day fire in Brookfield, listing the cause as undetermined, a spokesman said.
“Investigators could not rule out a heat lamp in the basement as a possible cause, but the official cause is undetermined,” said spokesman Andy Ellinger.
Brookfield Fire Chief Davis Masirovits said there was nothing suspicious about this fire, in which 16 dogs died of smoke inhalation, at 6716 Stewart Sharon Road.
The fire started in the southeast corner of the basement and worked its way up into the house, he said. No humans were home at the time.
