FAIRFIELD — Officers rescued a man with a prosthetic leg from his burning home on Military Avenue today.

Officer Jacob Pierce of the Fairfield Poilice Department was the first respondent to the scene, arriving shortly after 12:30 p.m., he said.

When he arrived, Pierce said smoke was coming from the upper level of the building and a neighbor was holding the front door of the house open.

Pierce said the occupant, a man who has rented the home from his sister for at least a decade, initially refused to leave the home, claiming that there was no problem.

With the help of fellow officer Karen O’Donnell, and Cpt. Michael Murphy of the Fairfield Fire Department, Pierce escorted the man outside.

Pierce deflected suggestions that his actions were heroic, and said instead that it was “all in a day’s work.”

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The man, visibly upset, stood outside in his socks for more than an hour as emergency officials from Fairfield, Waterville and Winslow doused the flames.

At about 1 p.m., June Hamlin, the house owner, arrived and offered comfort to her brother.

Hamlin said she learned of the fire when she was driving by the neighborhood and noticed the emergency vehicles outside the property.

She said that the home had been in the family since the 1970s and that all of her brother’s belongings were inside.

The house was insured, according to Hamlin.

Officials at the scene were not willing to speculate on the cause of the fire, which seemed to be fully extinguished by about 1:30 p.m.

 

 


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