By Justin Bigos, Staff Writer
Last Thursday, July 9, at 4:38 a.m., the Reading Fire & Rescue Department received a call that a building had collapsed and its residents were still inside. Arriving quickly at the scene, located at 916 Rt. 106, Reading Fire & Rescue Chief Gary Vittum was able to survey the wreckage — a one-and-a-half-story residential home with its roof caved in, and two residents standing outside their now-inhabitable home, looking for their cats.
“The building was partially collapsed — not a total collapse — and both occupants were out of the building at that time,” Vittum told the Standard of what he and his team found upon arrival. He said that the residents’ neighbors had helped them out of the building.
Unsure of the building’s construction date, Vittum described the structure as “a story and a half with two dormers on both sides.” As to the cause of the collapse, he expressed a candid uncertainty. “I really don’t know if there’s a way to determine what really happened, and [how] the building collapsed. I can’t tell you what that was caused from, whether it was old age or what it could be. It’s not safe enough to do a good walk-around,” said Vittum.
At this point, said Vittum, the likely outcome for the house is demolition. “The house is going to be turned over to the residents or the owners, and I’m not sure what their intent is. I would think it would have to be torn down. It’s definitely uninhabitable at this time,” he said. Vittum added that he believed one of the residents was also a co-owner of the home, then added that it was not in his jurisdiction to publicly release the names of the residents.
Reading Fire & Rescue initially reached out to the fire marshals at the Vermont Division of Fire Safety, Vittum said, who couldn’t do much to help since the property in question was residential. “If it was commercial, they could shut it down or deem it unsafe. They’re not able to do that, but that was a call that we felt necessary to make,” said Vittum.
The Standard confirmed the lack of jurisdiction of Fire Safety over the property via an email from Landon Wheeler, deputy director at the Department of Public Safety/Division of Fire Safety: “The Division of Fire Safety does not have an investigation in process for this property as the facility is a single-family, owner-occupied home and outside of the jurisdiction of the Division of Fire Safety. The Division of Fire Safety provided an informational and resource support role to the Local Fire Chief, and the DFS role was limited to that scope based on limitation of DFS jurisdiction.”
The exact whereabouts of the residents’ two missing cats is still unclear, though there have been sightings.
While Vittum said that he believed the town would decide next steps, Robert Allen, chair of the Reading Selectboard, told the Standard that the home’s future — including any demolition and clean-up — is in the hands of the owners.
For more on this, please see our July 16 edition of the Vermont Standard.
