Several town plow trucks were destroyed Sunday morning in a fire in Sandisfield, Massachusetts. A state Department of Public Works office in the area will handle plowing during tonight’s anticipated winter storm — and for the near future.
State Representative Smitty Pignatelli and Mike Knapik, director of Gov. Charlie Baker’s Western Massachusetts Office, met with town officials Monday to assess the next steps ahead of an anticipated winter storm.
Pignatelli, a Lenox Democrat, says the fire at the Sandisfield Highway Garage Sunday morning calls to mind a similar fire in nearby Tolland last year.
Pignatelli says the state assisted Tolland as long as possible, and the same will happen for Sandisfield.
“The state really mobilized, the mutual aid stepped up,” Pignatelli says. “So, we are just here to help, offer any assistance.”
Knapik praised Sandisfield for moving quickly to have the town’s insurers assess the damaged property. He says it took Tolland weeks to recover from the fire.
“I mean, obviously, we carried the town as much as we needed to through the winter months, obviously,” Knapik says. “I know there is some discussion about what happens within two weeks – what’ll happen, but we’ll work. I think the lieutenant governor is going to want to circle back to have a conversation – just to assure the town obviously whatever the state needs to do to provide that support, that through MEMA, through state DOT, we will obviously continue to do that.”
Town officials held an emergency meeting Monday. Town vehicles were pulling in and out of the old town hall building near the highway garage to check out the municipal building’s thick cinder-block exterior. It’s scorched and has been crumbling since the fire.
Town Road Superintendent Bob O’Brien was on the phone all morning with state DOT, DPW and residents about the fire and securing snow plows.
“It’s a mess only because it’s winter, and like I said we need, you know – if it was summer, it would still be a mess, but right now we need, we need the equipment that we no longer have,” O’Brien says.
The fire destroyed a dump truck and three of the town’s snowplowing trucks, including a new vehicle recently added to the fleet. It didn’t get much use — it hit the streets for the first time after Saturday’s snow.
“We lost the whole building,” O’Brien says. “Basically, anything it takes to maintain a town, I lost in that building. You know, so between all of the trucks and equipment it runs like $1 million.”
Fire departments from nearby Monterey, Otis, Tolland and two Connecticut towns extinguished the fire. No one was injured.
“The fire had already broke through the roof. The building was totally, the roof area was totally engulfed in flames already,” Ralph Morrison says.
Sandisfield Fire Chief Ralph Morrison, who spoke with WAMC News Monday morning, says if they responded five minutes later, it would have been a lot worse.
“The biggest concern was to get water on the thousand gallon gasoline that sits within 20 feet of the building. We concentrated on getting water on that. See the ease on that building, fire was all coming out all the way around the building – the fire was already coming out through there. And there was heavy, heavy black smoke already,” Morrison says.
The state Fire Marshal’s Office is still investigating. Based on the state’s visit and initial findings, Town Select Board Chair John Skrip speculates.
“We don’t know what started the fire yet, but it looks like something to do with our furnace,” Skrip says.
The state Department of Public Utilities satellite office in Otis will aid Sandisfield until the insurance report is settled.
Road Superintendent O’Brien plans to ask the insurers and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency to establish a temporary storage shelter until a new building is secure. Worst case: the fleet will be stored in a salt shed, which could harm the vehicles.
“I just met the insurance adjuster this morning, as far as the building and contents go, he declared everything a loss, a total loss,” O’Brien says. “That means the state’s going to have to step up and take care of Route 8 for me, I mean take care of my blacktop roads and some contactors will take care of dirt roads.”
The full insurance report is expected to be returned to the town by Wednesday.
