DUNBARTON, N.H. — As she gazed at the burned ruins of a farm that she has spent years trying to bring back to life, Alina Bosch took solace where it could be found.
“As big as the disaster was, no animals or humans got hurt, and nothing got lost that can’t be replaced,” she said earlier this week at the scene of last week’s fire, where high winds turned a potentially small blaze into a building-destroying inferno at Twist Hill Farm in Dunbarton.
Actually, Bosch added, she’s not absolutely certain about the lack of victims. “All the animals are safe except one guinea hen that I put into the barn – I don’t know if it managed to fly out of a window.”
That guinea hen is important to the story because it may have been behind the fire. Although the cause is still under investigation, one possibility is that the fire started in the barn as a result of a heat lamp that had operated there for many weeks.
Bosch had placed the guinea hen in the barn after finding it outside close to 2 a.m. on Oct. 17 and says she “started smelling smoke around 2:30, something like that.” She saw flames and called 911, making sure that all her animals were safe, but things quickly got out of hand despite her best efforts and the efforts of firefighters. The night’s vicious winds, which caused tens of thousands of people to lose power from downed trees, kept the fire roaring.
As for the cause, who knows, she said.
“The guinea hen may have flown up against the heat lamp, or it was flapping, and straw blew up again it, or maybe there was a problem with the extension cord – like a chipmunk chewed on the extension cord,” she said.
As evidence for that last idea: “The insurance guy said he’s had a lot of fires that started with a rodent chewing wires. And while he was walking around, a chipmunk ran over his foot!”
Bosch has been selling eggs, meat, honey and vegetables from the farm, which includes a greenhouse, several sheds and at least two garages. The centerpiece was the huge, 200-year-old barn and nearby sprawling home. The fire destroyed the barn spread to enough of the adjoining house to render it uninhabitable. Bosch is living in a mobile home while she regroups.
Bosch said she has been working on that house for four years through three contractors, which has involved so many details that she is on first-name basis with the Dunbarton building inspector and office staff – all of whom, she said, have been “sweet and helping.”
“It was never meant to be a renovation like this but the more you go into an older home, the more you find,” Bosch said, ticking off examples: “Horsehair plaster, once you get into it, is hard. The foundation had been washed out, we had to cut the house in half and lift up part of it. … It was a moving target for a lot of the time.”
Painfully, the work was almost done when the fire hit – just flooring and cabinets were left, she said.
The property’s long history is obvious both from the buildings and from community reaction. “People have been stopping by, telling stories of their childhood around here, or memories of the farm,” Bosch said.
Her idea has been to turn the property at 57 Twist Hill Road into a sustainable farm, one that is small scale and local but still viable in a changing world.
“This is a farm in a heavy residential area, so it’s hard to farm . when you’re worried about the goats getting into the neighbor’s petunias,” she said. “The idea was to change things up a little bit and invest in infrastructure, so the farm is better equipped to deal with residential neighborhoods.”
Obviously, the blaze has set back her plans. But she’s still looking to move ahead.
“All I want to do now is get this cleaned up and safe,” Bosch said. “Then we’ll see.”
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