DUXBURY, MASS. (WHDH) - A home in Duxbury is considered a total loss after a fire tore through it Tuesday, sending black smoke into the sky and prompting an hourslong emergency response.
The fire broke out in a house on Bay Avenue close to the Duxbury-Marshfield line near 12 p.m. Smoke was soon seen billowing over the area while flames leapt from the house’s windows. SKY7-HD spotted firefighters running hose lines through area properties. And neighbors gathered nearby.
“You could see it from about a mile away,” said Mark White, who was driving home to his house on Bay Avenue when he saw the smoke.
White said he learned the fire was happening at a neighbor’s home. With coastal wind whistling through the area, he said he was worried about the fire spreading.
Duxbury Fire Chief Rob Reardon said wind and the home’s relatively remote location posed a challenge in this response.
“It takes us a little longer to respond here,” he said.
Reardon said the home was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived on scene. As a result, crews needed to fight the fire from the building’s exterior.
As the smoke cleared, leaving behind a charred structure, neighbors said the home that burned had been passed from generation to generation within a family that still lives in the Duxbury area.
“These are people who have been neighbors for years,” said area resident Bill Kelly. “And they poured a lot of themselves into these houses. So, it’s difficult to see.”
Duxbury police in a post on X early Tuesday afternoon asked community members to avoid the area.
The Duxbury Fire Department in a post on Facebook said the emergency response had grown to two alarms as of around 1 p.m. The fire department said all off duty firefighters had been called back to work.
Firefighters from more than a half-dozen area towns ultimately aided in the firefighting effort, with some crews still on scene as of around 4 p.m. to douse and monitor hot spots.
The people who lived in the house that burned were not home when the fire started. Though they declined to speak on camera with reporters, they spoke with fire investigators Tuesday afternoon.
“We’re going to try to put together some pictures and videos from neighbors and we’re working with the state fire marshal to find the cause,” Reardon said of the now-ongoing fire investigation.
“It’s so sad,” White said of the fire. “It’s just so, so, so sad and so sudden. It can just happen like that.”
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