Deputy Fire Chief David McCrillis had nothing but praise for the effort of approximately 65 firefighters from Newport and 10 area communities who battled Friday’s blaze at LaValley Building Supply that destroyed Building 6, a storage unit.
“We were 90 seconds away from a catastrophic fire,” McCrillis said.
When he arrived as a passenger on the first Newport fire truck he was hoping for the best. “For the first five seconds I thought we could knock it down,” he related, but that never happened. Once those 5 seconds had ticked off, McCrillis realize there was going to be a battle to fight. Outside communities were called in to help. Including Newport, there were approximately 65 firefighters and 15 pieces of fire apparatus at the scene.
On Monday and Tuesday, Timothy E. Austin, a Fire Analysis from NEFCO Fire Investigators out of Rochester, N.H., was on scene for approximately 8 hours in an effort to determine the cause of the blaze in the 40 by 80-foot building.
“He found the breaker box and looked at the forklift stored inside Building 6,” McCrillis said. “He had to crawl to reach some areas.” McCrillis added.