Firefighters douse water on a lakefront structure that caught fire in New Fairfield, Conn., the morning of June 29, 2021.
Brookfield Vol. Fire Dept. Candlewood Company Inc.
NEW FAIRFIELD — A house under construction on the Candlewood Lake peninsula of Vaughn’s Neck went up in flames Tuesday morning, prompting a multi-town emergency response.
Firefighters from New Fairfield and nearby towns like Brookfield and Sherman were requested to respond to a fully involved structure fire on Old Road shortly after 8 a.m.
Due to the area only being accessible by boat, marine units were launched to reach the burning lakefront structure.
Marine 25 from Brookfield Volunteer Fire Department’s Candlewood Company was the first unit to get to the scene, followed soon after by fire/rescue boats from the New Fairfield and Sherman fire departments.
Firefighters managed to get the blaze under control by 8:40 a.m. — about 30 minutes after Marine 25 reached the scene.
Crews remained at the scene to make sure the fire was completely extinguished until about 9:30 a.m.
“The house involved was a single-family home under construction,” Fire Marshal Derrek Guertin said, adding that it was unattended at the time of the blaze.
He said the fire was called in by a neighbor a few houses down.
Although the cause of the fire remains under investigation, Guertin said he’s determined that it was “accidental in nature.”
The house was being built by Sherman-based Grioli Construction LLC, which had been posting photo updates of the project on its Facebook page since early June.
Guertin said the entire structure was affected by the fire.
