A raging house fire marked a terrible end to an otherwise peaceful Christmas day for one family in West Tisbury.
On Saturday night the seasonal residence of Dr. Deeb N. Salem, cardiologist and chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine, and his wife, Patricia Salem, of Lincoln, burned to the ground for reasons that are still under investigation by Island officials. The Salems, who were on the Island to celebrate the holiday season, were thankfully just down the road at the time, at the home of Mrs. Salem’s sister Tracy Driscoll and her husband, Brian, but a beloved family dog unfortunately did not escape the blaze.
At 10:15 p.m. the West Tisbury fire department responded to a report of a fire at 32 South Pond Road in the Deep Bottom subdivision in West Tisbury. The fire had been called in by Chilmark fireman Jeffrey Lynch, who was driving down the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road at the time and had seen the blaze from afar. Mr. Lynch drove down South Pond Road and knocked on the door of the next door neighbor, Alan Brigish, to inquire about the neighboring residence. Mr. Brigish, who says that he and his wife were about to retire for the night after entertaining guests, was amazed that the fire was visible from the state highway.
“We’ve got to be a mile or more from the road as the crow flies,” Mr. Brigish told the Gazette. Shortly thereafter police and EMTs arrived at the scene along with firefighters from West Tisbury, Chilmark and Tisbury, who began a battle with the fire that would last until the following morning.
“The fire hydrant wasn’t working at the time, but that didn’t really make a big difference because we never ran out of water,” West Tisbury fire chief Manuel Estrella 3rd told the Gazette. “We had two tank trucks and Edgartown was at the airport filling our tankers so we were shuttling water to the scene.”
Mr. Estrella said that he was aware of the defunct hydrant beforehand but it would be very difficult to repair in the wintertime.
“They’re probably going to have to drain the pond down to fix it,” he said.
Mr. Estrella said that around 25 firefighters responded to the fire, working until around nine in the morning trying to subdue the flames. A medical rehab center for the firemen was set up by the EMTs at the Brigish’s house. Mr. Estrella said his men returned at 1 p.m. on Sunday and there were still parts of the house that were flaring up.
At the height of the blaze Mr. Brigish grabbed his coat and camera and attempted to document the scene. Before long though he realized the danger of the situation.
“I went down the side of the house and took a picture from the back but the fire was so intense that I said, ‘I’d better get out of here.’ ” he said. “I didn’t know if it was going to explode. Everything was just going up. It seemed like anything could happen so I beat a hasty retreat up the driveway.”
Mr. Estrella said that none of the firefighters entered the burning structure.
“It was too dangerous,” he said.
Mr. Brigish’s wife, Joyce, managed to contact the Salems down the road, but when the family arrived on the scene their primary concern was not for the house but for their dog, who was still in a cage in the upstairs above the garage.
“One of the Salem’s sons was the owner of the dog and he was pretty distraught,” said Mr. Brigish.
Mr. Estrella says that the firefighters still intend to recover the remains of the animal.
“He’s still in there, but it’s not safe to go in yet so we’ll probably go in tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve got a machine coming to move stuff around for us and we’ll be able to retrieve it. The homeowners are upset. They want the dog so they can have a proper burial.”
This morning the Island’s fire investigation team, composed of Jim Rogers, Peter Marzbanian, Tony Ferrara, Scott Ellis and Matt Mincone, will survey the premises to investigate the cause of the fire, which is at this point a mystery.
“We probably won’t have a clue what caused it until tomorrow afternoon,” Mr. Estrella said yesterday.
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