Firefighters, background, continue to pour water on the upper portion of a home located at 98 Bates Road in Westfield owned by Jeffrey Oleksak. (File photo by chief photographer Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – Investigators have determined that a fire which destroyed the house at 98 Bates Road was caused by problems with the chimney in the 62 year-old structure.
Deputy Westfield Fire Chief Patrick Egloff said Tuesday morning that an investigation by himself, State Trooper Michael Mazza of the Massachusetts Fire Marshall’s office and Det. Lt. David Ragazzini of the Westfield Police Department found that the fire reported at 4:26 p.m. Sunday started due to gaps in the chimney.
Egloff said that the fireplace was being used for the first time in a year and a half and was “in disrepair”.
“There was mortar that was missing” in the chimney Egloff said. “It wasn’t sealed up tight like it should be” he said and said that the gaps allowed sparks or flames to reach the timbers of the building.
Egloff said that the owner, Jeffrey S. Oleksak, had been renovating the house and there were no interior walls in place.
Although there was insulation on some of the studs, Egloff said, “it was wide open with no sheet rock in the house” so there was no impediment to slow the fire as it raced through the house.
He said that the resident, Jeffrey S. Oleksak, had been in the kitchen of his house cooking a pizza in his oven when he noticed fire falling from the ceiling.
Oleksak, who had been alone in the house with his dog, left the house immediately with the dog. Neither was injured by the fire.
The arriving firefighters, under the command of Deputy Chief Patrick Kane, found the house fully involved in flames.
Since Kane was confident that there was nobody in the building, he elected to fight the fire from outside the house.
Egloff explained that “The risk goes up a hundredfold if you have to go into the building” and said that no firefighters were injured in the blaze.
He said that a detached shed caught fire and also burned. Firefighters also extinguished small brush fires spawned by the conflagration, Egloff said.
Egloff said that firefighters brought the fire under control in about an hour and worked for about four and a half hours before they returned to station about 9 p.m.
The house and contents were a total loss, Kane reports.
Egloff said that Oleksak told him that he bought the house from his grandfather who originally built it.
City records show that the house was built in 1950 and owned by James S. Oleksak until his grandson bought it in 2008.
