A fire destroyed the second floor and attic of a house in downtown Antrim Wednesday night.
The Antrim Fire Department was summoned to 20 Summer Street at 9:40 p.m. for a building fire, Fire Chief Marshall Gale said. Homeowner Peter Koutroubas was gone at the time, out for a short drive to Gregg Lake with a friend. “I’m coming up the hill on Summer Street to my house… I could see the smoke,” he said, and a knot of firetrucks. “Then I realized, oh my God, it’s my house.”
The neighbor across the street had called the Fire Department, Gale said.
Flames were coming out second story windows and part of the roof when firefighters arrived, Gale said, and they upgraded the fire to a second alarm so they could rotate personnel in and out to protect them from the heat. First responders were able to extinguish most of the fire within 20 minutes, although the fire had spread to the attic and crawlspace. The first floor was unburned, but sustained a lot of water damage, Gale said.
The fire appears to have originated near a staircase on the second floor in the homeowner’s “computer room,” Gale said, where a lot of electronics were stored. Responders believe an electrical issue could have caused the blaze, he said.
“The important thing was no one was home,” Koutroubas said, and nobody got hurt. His two cats were outside and unharmed, he said. On Thursday morning, he was working to combat water in the basement, as the sump pump stopped working when electricity was cut to the house. “It’s a very surreal experience,” he said. Neighbors have reached out to help, Koutroubas said, “which is comforting.”
“Nonetheless, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,” he said.