ORANGE — The state Fire Marshal’s Office could not determine the cause or point of origin for the Wednesday night fire that destroyed a vacant Tully Road double-wide trailer, though the blaze is not considered suspicious in nature.

A passerby reported the fire at 175 Tully Road at roughly 9:40 p.m. on Wednesday, Orange Fire Chief James Young said. The single-family home collapsed into its basement within minutes of firefighters’ arrival.

“It was obviously a defensive operation. Nobody was going in the building,” Young said about the structure being unoccupied. Firefighters cleared the scene at roughly 2 a.m. on Thursday.

Owners David and Carol Shaw told the Greenfield Recorder they had just put a new roof on the trailer, which was built onto a foundation, with the hope that their daughter and her three children could move in. David Shaw said he believes lightning from a passing storm Wednesday evening may have sparked a fire that smoldered and grew for hours before the passerby spotted it. However, the state Fire Marshal’s Office could not confirm when reached on Thursday.

Young said the home was outside of Orange’s hydrant district, so crew members had to pull water from Tully Pond, near the Boiler Bar & Grille restaurant.

“They did really well, as they always do,” Young said of his crew Thursday morning. “We were able to get an uninterrupted water supply very early on into the fire.”

According to the Orange Fire Department’s Facebook page, the 911 call reporting the fire came in as Jim’s Auto was removing a Chevrolet Traverse from the scene of a single-vehicle accident on Warwick Road (Route 78). A medical helicopter was requested but could not respond due to inclement weather. The driver, the vehicle’s sole occupant, was taken to Athol Hospital.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-930-4120.

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