Fire burns East Hampton barn

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An electrical fire destroyed the attic and hayloft of a barn in East Hampton on Thursday.
Photos by Alan Burke

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A fire destroyed the roof and hayloft of a barn on Cedar Street in East Hampton on Thursday morning, near enough to the East Hampton Fire Department that smoke had begun to waft into the dispatch room even before the call came in, said Assistant Fire Marshal Jim Dunlap.

Mr. Dunlap said the call was received around 9 a.m. and the department responded immediately to the property at 26 Cedar Street.

“They could see smoke coming from across the road,” he said. “The wind was blowing it right into dispatch.”

He said it appeared that the cause might have been electrical and that the fire started in the hayloft. He said the structure was a horse barn, but there were not any horses in the barn at the time of the fire.

According to the police report, the barn was located at the rear of the property, and Mr. Dunlap said the flames first engulfed the back side of the barn, so the property owner did not immediately notice the fire. He said by the time the call came in the fire was already advanced.

It took firefighters more than two hours to officially declare the fire extinguished because they had to wait for an excavator to tear down the roof to get at stubborn embers within the structure.

“That’s somewhat of a long time for that size building, but they had to wait for the excavator,” Mr. Dunlap said. “That probably delayed it about a half hour.”

The barn was located in a residential area and surrounded by houses, but Mr. Dunlap said the fire did not cause any damage to nearby structures.