Seymour resident Siobhan Darcy returned from a shopping trip Sunday about 11:15 a.m. and was greeted by a chilling sight.
“I actually was pulling up from the grocery store and saw smoke coming out the windows,” Darcy said Monday morning while standing in front of the two-family Chamberlin Road home she shares with another family.
The smoke she saw Sunday was coming from her neighbor’s apartment in the duplex. But two of her sons, 15 and 13, were home inside her apartment.
“I pulled my car in and banged on the door to kid my kids out,” Darcy recalled.
Another woman from the neighborhood drove her car onto the property and began wailing on her car horn to warn anyone else inside the duplex.
Luckily, everyone inside — including the man whose apartment was burning — was able to escape without injury.
The fire started inside a bedroom at 40 Chamberlin Road, according to Seymour Deputy Fire Marshal Timm Willis, one of the first emergency responders on the scene Sunday.
Firefighters responded to the scene — at the end of a steep road that ends in a cul-de-sac — and extinguished the fire quickly.
“We had smoke showing from the second-floor bedroom coming out the windows,” Willis said. “The fire engine arrived on the scene, department members stretched a hose line and they made quick work of it.”
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, Willis said.
Darcy said the house was ruled uninhabitable, and that she and her children are staying with neighbors until they can get back into their home.
The Red Cross is assisting the residents of the other apartment in the house.
Darcy said she’s not sure how extensive repairing the damage to the building will be.
“Just smoke, and my basement’s full of water,” she said of the damage to her apartment.
Willis the apartment where the fire started suffered some $25,000 in damage.
Earlier Sunday, Shelton firefighters extinguished a basement fire at a Joseph Court house just after 4 a.m., according to the Echo Hose Hook & Ladder Co. 1’s Facebook page. There were no injuries during that incident.
