ANDOVER — It may be weeks or even months before 80-year-old Mary Manock can return to her ranch house at the intersection of Elm Street and Rock Ridge Road.
But Deputy Chief Richard Hartman said he was pleased that firefighters were able to work quickly early last night to contain the blaze inside the single-family ranch house before it could spread to the outside and set the heavily wooded lot on fire.
"Using a thermal imaging camera, we were able to locate the seat of the fire and knock it down pretty quickly," Hartman said. But the woman's cat died in the blaze.
"The house will be salvageable, but not habitable for a while," Hartman said. "There's heavy smoke damage and some localized heat and structural damage. The men did a good job under difficult conditions to get this out before it could shoot across the yard," he said.
Fire officials have not yet estimated the extent of the damage. But Manock said she has no insurance to cover the loss.
"I've lived in that house for 30 years since my husband died and I don't know where I'm going to stay now," Manock said as she watched firefighters complete their work.
"And I can't find my cat, Katrina. She's 16 years old and she always stayed in the house," she said.
Manock said she recently had a stent placed in one of her arteries.
Firefighters later found the gray cat's body on the first floor. They believe she suffocated from the heavy smoke.
State police fire investigators determined an electrical malfunction in the kitchen stove caused the fire. Manock said she had problems with the stove earlier and had taken the burner off because it wasn't working.
Manock estimated she had left the house about three hours before the fire broke out.
"When I came home, I saw some girls looking at the roof and I asked them what was wrong. They said, 'Your house is on fire,'" Manock said.
Volunteers from the Trauma Intervention Program of the Merrimack Valley were called in to comfort Manock, who lived alone.
"They (TIP) made arrangements for her to have a place to stay tonight and will set her up with some social service agencies who can help her tomorrow," Hartman said.
Hartman praised TIP for helping the elderly woman. He also credited the town's Health Department, electrical inspector and building inspector for their assistance.
"National Grid helped make the power safe by cutting the power at the pole.
The fire broke out shortly before 6 p.m. But firefighters had it extinguished within 15 minutes.
"The men did a real aggressive attack under very difficult conditions to keep this thing from getting a lot worse," Hartman said.
