An East Hampton couple and their two dogs made it out safely after their house on Drew Lane caught fire around 5:30 on Tuesday afternoon, but the house was badly damaged.
While crowds were heading toward Main Beach for a Tuesday night Rubix Kube concert, the East Hampton Fire Department was responding to reports of smoke billowing out of the window of a house on Drew Lane, within walking distance of the beach.
The owner of the house told police Tuesday that he “suddenly observed smoke and fire.”
Christopher Hatch, the chief of the East Hampton Fire Department, said Wednesday that fire and smoke appeared in a room on the south side of the house and that the owners at first attempted to put it out with an extinguisher but were unsuccessful.
While their names were not released by police, according to records the house is owned by Dr. O. Wayne and Patricia Isom.
A sergeant on the scene reportedly kept the couple’s two dogs safe inside a police cruiser while the fire raged “Our first truck was on the scene at 5:29 p.m., at which time an interior attack was made that knocked down the bulk of the fire,” Chief Hatch said Wednesday. “From there, the tower ladder was deployed along with roof teams and additional interior teams to
overhaul and extinguish fires in the roof, attic, and interior walls,” he added. Multiple departments, including Springs, Montauk, Amagansett, Southampton, and Sag Harbor, also responded to the fire. In all, according to the chief, 85 firefighters and emergency medical services members were on the scene.
Emergency personnel were on the scene for hours.
East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen called the response “a team effort” and offered his thanks to the departments that came to the village to assist.
Concertgoers were starting to fill the parking lot for the 6 p.m. show, but, according to Detective Sgt. Jennifer Dunn of the village police, traffic was not an issue for emergency vehicles. “Since the village put the restriction of no parking on the roads in that area this year,” she said by email Wednesday morning, “it avoided the problem of cars blocking access for the fire trucks.”
Chief Hatch agreed, saying concert-related traffic “did not significantly impede response” although it was considered a challenge at the outset.
Wednesday morning, portions of the house were boarded up and the damage from the fire and the efforts to contain it were unmistakable.
Chief Hatch said the house suffered “extensive damage throughout.”
According to Mayor Larsen, a few members of the fire department sustained minor steam burns from the blaze.
Kenneth Collum, the East Hampton Village fire marshal, is investigating the cause of the fire. He was not available for comment Wednesday morning.
This article has been updated since it first appeared in print.
