The Northern New England Blog

by Dan Dowling – regional communications manager “It only took two minutes from when I went downstairs to look, that the flames had already traveled through. It was that quick.” When Morrisville, Vermont resident Jaime Harmon woke up to the sound of a smoke alarm before sunrise on a Sunday morning in February, she assumed it would be a quick check and a minor inconvenience. Instead, within minutes, her home was filled with smoke, flames were moving through the walls, and she and her family were racing to escape. Jaime’s 16‑year‑old niece who was living there was the first to sense something was wrong. “She said there’s a crackling in the wall. I went downstairs, saw the pellet stove was out,” Jamie recalled. Jaime opened the access panel to the wall and could see the fire spreading. She tried the fire extinguisher, but it did not work and then called 911. Realizing the fire was growing, she shifted into action. Jaime ran upstairs to try to save her cat, but the fire had already travele...