Lovell home burns early Tuesday morning amid frigid temps

An early morning fire claimed the home of a Lovell man Tuesday.

The Lovell Volunteer Fire Department was called to a house fire at 31 Highway 14A East at 12:28 a.m. Tuesday, the Will Tillett residence.

Upon arrival at 12:33, firemen saw a residential home “with fire coming out of the roof from one end to the other,” station manager Bob Mangus said.

Firemen attacked the blaze and found that it was spreading from the area of a stove pipe chimney, burning up into the attic and spreading “both ways,” Mangus said.

“They attacked it from the interior and the exterior,” Mangus said, adding that the home had a tin roof and a vaulted ceiling.”

The blaze was out by 2:29 a.m., Mangus said, and a truck was released, but when firemen tried to send a second truck back to the fire hall at 3:40, water had frozen on the brakes, and firemen had to crawl under and break ice off the brakes in the frigid morning.

A fire inspector was called and arrived just after 7 a.m., driving from Riverton.

“We knew what caused it, but due to the extent of the damage, we called the fire marshal,” Mangus said. “We left Truck 6 there until the marshal arrived.”

Mangus said a stove in the house had an insulated box going up and into the ceiling to provide separation for the stove pipe, but over the years heat dried out a nearby support board, and the wood combusted.

“It was tough conditions for the equipment at 5 below,” Mangus said. “We had frozen lines, frozen brakes, frozen nozzles and a manifold.”

Three fire trucks, two pickups and a pack truck and trailer responded to the fire, Mangus said.

He said the Tillett home sustained severe damage in the blaze.