by Bea Peterson
A fire that began in a hall closet in the home of Frederick and Donna Adler on Johnson Hill Road on Tuesday afternoon, February 15, caused considerable smoke, heat and water damage to the entire building. “When we entered the house we couldn’t see more than a foot in front of us; the smoke was that thick,” said North Hoosick Fire Chief Alan Bornt. Both the Adlers were home at the time. The Rensselaer County Fire Investigation Team is still looking into the cause of the blaze.
Bornt said the structure is sound, but there is a lot of damage.
The North Hoosick Fire Department was first on the scene. Others responding were the Hoosick, Hoosick Falls, Buskirk, West Hoosick and White Creek Fire Departments and the Town of Hoosick Rescue Squad. Though a water line was laid from the house down the hill to a pond at the intersection of Johnson Hill and Ball Street Ext., the line was not activated. Bornt said they had enough water in tanker trucks to extinguish the fire. But they had to break the ice to refill the tankers at the pond. During cleanup, water from the hoses flowed down the road. The temperature was close to 20 degrees, and the water would undoubtedly freeze. A Rensselaer County truck was on hand to salt the road once the fire trucks left. It appeared that loading the North Hoosick trucks was difficult with some of the firefighters working knee deep in snow.
