April fire in Tompkins Tisdale - Thursday, June 6, 2013 by:Timothy W. Shire
In the early morning hours of April 22, 2013 the house seen in these pictures became engulfed in flames. The owner of the house was awakened by his neighbour and though he sustained some burns he did survive a fire that consumed the house and destroyed his neighbour’s house as well. It is believed, that the cause of the fire was an improperly installed wood burning heating system, which allowed the fire to spread through the building very quickly.
Brad Willows was able to capture the video seen at the bottom of this page with a Canon PowerShot camera. The video begins on the alley side of the house which is seen in the picture at the top of the page then Brad moved around to the street which is the side of the house shown in the second picture. Tompkin’s volunteer firemen were able to prevent the destruction of other houses or building on the street despite the high winds occurring at the time. The sign on the right was seen today posted on the bulletin board of the Tompkin’s Co-op.
