Early-morning fire damages city home
2 Woonsocket firefighters suffer minor injuries; occupants escape
WOONSOCKET — Two firefighters suffered minor injuries battling a scorching fire that heavily damaged a single-family home at 533 North Main St. and left two occupants homeless on Friday.
The firefighters, who weren’t identified, were transported to Landmark Medical Center, one with an ankle injury and the other suffering from dehydration after responding to the fire at 533 North Main St. about 1:55 a.m., Chief Paul Shatraw of the Woonsocket Fire Department said.
“They were seen at the hospital and they’re home now, doing fine,” the chief said Friday morning.
The 179-year-old dormered Cape shows scant damage from the curb, but the rear of the house was little more than a cinder-blackened shell after the flames were extinguished. When firefighters answered a 911 call for help, the found the back of the house engulfed in heavy flames.
First-responders encountered a man and a woman, plus three cats, outside the house when they arrived. Both adults were unharmed. The cats were alive, but may have suffered some distress from smoke inhalation.
“They did administer some oxygen to them,” the chief said. The occupants were sleeping when the fire broke out, Shatraw said. The woman told investigators they were awakened by a noise, discovered the fire and fled to safety with their pets..
“We knocked down the main body of the fire in about 10 minutes,” Shatraw said. “And we had it under control in about a half hour.”
Acting Animal Control Officer Kevin Sullivan said he turned over the cats to Ocean State Veterinary Specialists for additional treatment. Sullivan said one of the cats appeared to be in critical condition, but all three were alive when he dropped them off about two hours after the fire. A spokeswoman for the East Greenwich-based animal hospital said she couldn’t talk about the condition of the cats without their owners’ permission.
Shatraw said the investigators from the Woonsocket Fire Department and the State Fire Marshals Office are still attempting to determine the cause and origin of the fire.
Officials did not release the identity of the adults who were displaced, but city records list the owner of the house as Stephanie Sutcliffe. The house, which appeared to have been maintained with great care, was built in 1840, according to the assessor’s online database.