By Eric Francis Daybreak Correspondent 01/27/2025 WHITE RIVER JUNCTION - Back-to-back house fires in Hartford and then Windsor kept Upper Valley firefighters busy Monday evening.
A home belonging to Greg and Bonnie Sieglinger on Valley View Road in Hartford burned to the ground just after dusk, sending the couple, one of their parents, and their four young children running out into the night.
Hartford firefighters struck the first alarm at 5 p.m., but as engines arrived on the scene they found wind-driven flames already through the roof of a large barn-like garage and spreading rapidly into the attached ranch-style house.
Flames engulfed a raised ranch style home and a large attached garage barn on Valley View Road in Hartford just after 5 p,m. on Monday afternoon. Photos © Eric Francis.
As thick smoke banked down through the woods and across a section of nearby Interstate 89 clear down onto Route 4 by the Center of Town Road intersection, Hartford Fire Chief Scott Cooney quickly upgraded the call to a second and then a third alarm, bringing fire engines from as far away as Woodstock and Windsor, VT and Plainfield, NH.
Despite a small pond with a dry hydrant near the front door of the residence, water supply in the cold temperatures proved to be a challenge and crews supplemented the water supply on the four-acre property with a tanker shuttle from a hydrant in front of the former Pleasant View Motel on Route 4, just west of White River Junction.
Despite a pond right beside the home, getting water in the cold temperatures proved to be a challenge, so firefighters from a dozen Vermont and New Hampshire departments set up a water tanker shuttle using the hydrant in front of the former Pleasant View Motel on Route 4, just outside White River Junction.
“I’m losing everything,” a distraught Greg Sieglinger yelled as he stood in the driveway lit by the glow of the flames. “My business, everything is gone!”
His children managed to carry at least one large iguana out of the house and firefighters rescued three cats alive, one of which was taken to SAVES in Lebanon for further treatment, but other cats, a dog, and several other lizards were not immediately accounted for.
The American Red Cross put the family up in a local hotel late Monday evening as Hartford Fire crews prepared to spend the night on scene making sure what little remained of the structure did not rekindle due to wind gusts. Chief Cooney said that fire marshals would try to determine a cause for the blaze on Tuesday.
The three-alarm fire gutted the Hartford residence just after darkness fell Monday afternoon, but the couple and their four children escaped unharmed.
Windsor fire crews were about halfway back to their station after assisting at the Hartford scene when they received a report of smoke in a three-story single family residence on Main Street, near the Price Chopper supermarket in their town.
A returning ambulance arrived at 15 Main Street first and got the occupants and their animals out of the house before discovering that there was a fire in the kitchen of the large home.
The crew requested a first-alarm assignment, which added fire engines from Ascutney, West Windsor, Hartland and Cornish, NH to the effort.
“Our engine got there next and confined it to the kitchen and quickly extinguished it,” explained Windsor Fire Lt. Trey Whalen. “There was a small amount of smoke and water damage to the rest of the house and we had to turn all the services off, so they won’t be able to stay in their home tonight, but we saved the structure.”