Six alarm fire destroys Ward Clapboard Mill

January 8, 2004

By Lisa Loomis

A wood furnace is thought to be the cause of a roaring fire that consumed the Ward Clapboard Mill in Moretown on January 5.

The fire destroyed the planer mill and a sawdust storage area, although firefighters were able to save a storage bay full of milled clapboards.

"We are going to rebuild. We're just working through the insurance process right now," said mill spokesperson Alison Duckworth.

She said one of the two mill employees was temporarily laid off and said that the company was still in business, operating from its saw mill in Maine.

A six alarm fire Monday night razed the Ward Clapboard Mill in Moretown. Photo: Jeff Warner

Moretown fire chief George Moulton said the fire was called in at 8:00 p.m., from a phone across the street at the Moretown Store.

"All indications are that it started right near the wood furnace. When I got there the fire was rolling out of the front of the building, dead in the center and spreading to each side," Moulton said, noting that one of his firefighters reached the scene by 8:03 p.m. with the town's fire engine which had been parked just down the street at the town garages.

Moulton immediately put out a call for mutual aid, summoning firefighters from Waitsfield, Warren, Middlesex, Waterbury Town and Waterbury Village.

"I called for help right away, because I knew that if this wasn't contained, it would get down into the saw mill itself. With our equipment being scattered all over while our new fire station is being finished, our tanker was being stored outside and empty and we only had the water that was on our engine, 12,000 gallons, plus some foam," Moulton said.

Moulton, as scene commander was directing close to 60 firefighters while Mad River Valley Ambulance Service personnel assisted with scene control and traffic. Traffic on Route 100B through Moretown Village was slowed and even stopped for a while as firefighters responded to the scene.

Getting 60 firefighters, their trucks and hoses onto the site was challenging, but was directed through radio communication and went well, Moulton said. While some firefighters worked the scene, others took their tankers down to the river to fill them up.

Moulton said the fire burned hot and said that when the sawdust storage bin caught, the flames exploded downward on the south side of the building closest to the Moretown Town Hall.

"Sawdust is weird. It burns from the top down. When we hit it with water, it was like a semi-explosion," he said.

"The term we use is 'knocking down the fire'. We knocked it down, or slowed it down enough that we could go in and do a full attack on it. We are lucky to be using foam because it really helps slow the fire. It was obvious that the center of the building was not going to be saved, neither was the sawdust shoot, which was where Waitsfield was working," he recalled.

"It's amazing all the stuff that goes through your mind. We were knocking it down, but I worried about the Town Hall anyway. The time I considered the fire under control was 9:39 p.m. Then we brought the road commissioner in to take the draudt (heavy equipment) and tear the walls down, spreading them out so we could extinguish the whole thing. We were out of there by 10:40 p.m. We left the scene and went back to the station," he added.

Moulton guessed that the building was 40 percent burned but said he was happy that firefighters had been able to save the clapboards stored in a bay adjacent to the planer mill as well as the sawmill itself.

"It amazes me that we were able to save so much of it," Moulton added.He said firefighters received moral and other support from townspeople who gathered on the bank across from the mill as well as from Moretown Store employees who kept firefighters' hands thawed with hot cups of coffee.