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Fire investigator Dale Jaynes surveys the wreckage of the garage.

Fire levels garage, guts home

Cause sought for Montour Falls blaze

MONTOUR FALLS, July 18 -- Fire investigators were on the scene late Monday morning to assess the cause of a fire that leveled a garage and gutted the home of Erin and Yvonne Coates at 118 Henry Street, a block from the Montour Falls Main Street.

The blaze began shortly after 12:30 a.m. Monday in the garage and jumped to the house when the first structure collapsed. Firefighters from several departments responded to the scene, arriving after the blaze had spread to the house.

Erin and Yvonne Coates said the fire was discovered by their two teenage sons, who had been staying at a nearby neighbor's home. The boys ran into the house alerting their parents and two sisters, 15 and 10. Everyone got out safely, beating the advance of the flames.

The family, which had just returned from a vacation trip Sunday to Old Forge in the Adirondacks, lost a hamster in the blaze. Two dogs got out during the evacuation, and two cats were already outside. A small fish survived the fire in a fishbowl in a front downstairs room in the northwest corner, where damage was lightest.

The Coates bought the house in January 2008. "We busted our butts to buy it," said Yvonne Coates. "Twenty four hours ago we were on our way home -- to what now? Now it's gone." It was, she added, covered by insurance.

Next-door neighbor Bill Arnold witnessed part of the fire.

"I saw it from up there," he said, pointing to a second-floor window in his house. "I could feel the heat from there. It moved fast."

Arnold's own garage sustained some damage, with bubbling and warping in its siding.

The interior of most of the Coates house was either charred or heavily smoke- and water-damaged, and the ceiling above the first floor was -- said Erin Coates -- "hanging by a thread."

Firefighters from Montour Falls, Odessa, Watkins Glen, Millport, Burdett, Beaver Dams, Town and Country and Horseheads responded. Odessa Fire Chief Mike Tomassi said 17 firefighters answered the call from his department.

He said the house fire was difficult to extinguish because it started from the outside and worked it. "It usually goes from the inside out. This way, it gets in the walls and between boards. You're chasing smoke for a while, and then you have to dig the fire out. It's a nightmare."

It was also difficult because of the high temperature and humidity, which drained the firefighters wearing heavy gear and air packs. "We used a ton of water refreshing them," Tomassi said.

State Fire Investigators Dale Jaynes and Jim Ryan were on site for well over an hour in the late morning and early afternoon Monday, measuring, taking pictures, asking questions of the Coateses and unleashing a K-9 member of the team, Shadow (a Silver Lab) to "run the scene" -- sniffing around the rubble of the garage searching for evidence as to how the fire might have started.

No word was immediately available on what, if anything, Shadow might have found.

Photos in text:

From the top: Remains of the garage fire; Erin and Yvonne Coates; fire investigator Jim Ryan with Shadow, searching for evidence into how the fire might have started; a side of the house.

Firefighters atop the roof in the early morning hours. (Photo by David Franzese)

Left: The view from ground level, looking up through a bedroom window. Right: The ground floor, inside the front door.

The garage, as seen from the street.