— by Eric Francis

Lebanon, NH 4/11/23 — A fire that began in the kitchen of an apartment Tuesday morning ended up hospitalizing one woman and displacing a total of nine residents from a four-story senior housing building across from the green in downtown Lebanon.

“All I heard was, ‘There’s smoke, get out!’,” recalled 85-year-old Ernest J. Brown, a resident of the third floor at the Rogers House who has lived there for the past eight years.  “I had been sleeping but the alarm went off, which is very loud, and so we all had to evacuate.”

Brown, who recently had back surgery, ended up having to make his way down a back stairwell in socks before he found a chair on the front porch of the building where he could rest and watch as North Park Street filled up with fire trucks in front of him.

“It was a struggle but, thank God, I made it down” the three flights of stairs, Brown said, adding “I’ve never seen so many fire trucks and personnel. The first responders were great, really professional, really great people who helped. They were right there. I thought they were going to knock my door down at first.”

A total of 45 elderly residents, many of whom have mobility issues, live at the Rogers House next to Lebanon’s City Hall, where dozens of them were taken for shelter while the fire was being fought. Eric Francis photos.

After the fire came under control, firefighters spent time rounding up walkers and shoes for several residents, including Brown, so they could make the short journey next door to Lebanon City Hall, where many of them took shelter while the situation inside Rogers House was being sorted out.

“It could have been a lot worse and the weather isn’t bad but I think it’s going to be a while before I can come back,” Brown said, noting that some apartments had up to two inches of water in them.

It had already been a busy morning for Lebanon’s firefighters, who were dealing with multiple ambulance runs in town when the fire alarm rang at 10:17 a.m. for the Rogers House, which sits across Colburn Park from Lebanon Station One.

“It just came in as a fire alarm activation but when the companies got here they found a smoke condition on the third floor area hallway and then they found a fire in an apartment,” recalled Lebanon Fire Chief Jim Wheatley, who noted that because of the volume of calls underway Tuesday there were only two firefighters onboard the first engine that arrived.

“They found one victim in the apartment who they removed,” the chief said. “She was transported to Dartmouth Hitchcock, where she’s in stable condition. She’s expected to survive.”

Rogers House resident Ernie Brown (right), who is 85 years old, had to flee down a back stairwell from his third-floor apartment without his shoes. Hanover Firefighter Helder Ferreira (center) and Jeff Holland (background right) helped Brown find a pair of shoes and a walker so he could make it over to City Hall and rejoin his neighbors who were waiting there.

Lebanon fire crews were helped out at the scene by additional firefighters, engines, and ladder trucks from Hanover, Hartford,  Enfield, Canaan, and Norwich while engines from Woodstock and Plainfield and an ambulance from Canaan covered Lebanon’s stations.

Despite the heavy turnout, Chief Wheatley said much of what allowed the situation to come under control in just 25 minutes’ time happened right off the bat.

“It went pretty well,” the chief noted. “The alarm gave us the early notification and when we got here the sprinkler system had already activated in the apartment.  It kept the fire in check until we could finish extinguishing it and prevented it from spreading anywhere else either inside or outside of that apartment’s kitchen.”

With the apartment’s occupant still hospitalized on Tuesday evening, the investigation into the fire was ongoing; however, officials stressed that it is not considered suspicious.

While 49 residents were allowed to return to their apartments inside Rogers House by Tuesday evening, a dozen apartments were out of commission because they sustained water and smoke damage and a total of nine residents, including the woman who remained hospitalized, were temporarily displaced from the building.

“Some are staying with family and five others have been housed at a local hotel,” said Ditha Alonso, the Executive Director of the Lebanon Housing Authority, which owns Rogers House.

“We will be actively assessing the damage in more detail over the next few days and we have already communicated with various