Ansonia Fire Marshal Ralph Tingley credited a working smoke alarm with saving the life of a Howard Avenue resident whose house caught fire Tuesday night.
The blaze broke about 7 p.m. in a third floor rear bedroom of 77 Howard Ave., a three-unit multi-family house.
A man who lives in the apartment was asleep at the time, Tingley said Wednesday.
“The fellow on the third floor was in one of the other bedrooms and the smoke detector did sound and wake him up,” Tingley said.
The man then saw the fire and was able to get out of the home while alerting the house’s other residents.
Firefighters from Ansonia and Derby responded to the scene and confined the fire to the third floor, but the rest of the house suffered extensive smoke and water damage and is now uninhabitable.
Tingley said Wednesday that he hasn’t made an official ruling as to the fire’s cause, but that “I didn’t find anything that leads me to believe it’s anything other than an accidental fire.”
He said a dog from the state fire marshal’s office responded to the scene of the blaze but didn’t turn up anything suspicious, he said.
The home’s three units were occupied at the time of the fire, Tingley said.
The Red Cross responded to the scene of the fire to assist the house’s residents.
