Ansonia’s volunteer firefighters had a busy weekend.
Clifton Avenue Fire
Crews were sent to a two-family home at 98 Clifton Ave. about 4:30 a.m. Saturday on a report of a fire.
Fire Marshal Ralph Tingley said the resident had dropped a cigarette in his bedroom earlier Friday evening, and returned about midnight to find his residence full of smoke because the butt was smoldering in a carpet.
The resident extinguished the blaze — or so he thought — and put the carpet in a trash can outside an enclosed porch.
“Apparently it wasn’t out all the way,” Tingley said.
The carpet later reignited, and flames spread from the trash can up one of the house’s walls.
A passing motorist noticed the fire and alerted the resident of the home, who was the only one in the building at the time.
He and a neighbor started putting the fire out with a garden hose before firefighters arrived and extinguished the blaze.
The fire was ruled an accident. The man who was in the home at the time was taken to the hospital for an evaluation and released, Tingley said.
Lightning Strike
Firefighters also responded to a home at 30 LaRovera Terrace Sunday morning after lightning struck the single-family home.
Tingley said the lightning bolt hit an unused satellite dish on the roof, and the home’s residents saw some sparks coming from the house’s exterior.
Firefighters determined the lightning went from the satellite dish to the home’s aluminum gutters, then a fence post.
Crews cleared the scene after checking the house and determining there was no fire, Tingley said.
The home’s owner thanked emergency personnel for their response in a post on the Valley Indy’s Facebook page Monday.
