The back deck of 227 Lincoln Road after the fire. (Photos courtesy Erica Gonella)
A fire that started atop a Lincoln Road home’s hot tub on June 26 burned the deck and the side of the adjoining house before firefighters extinguished it.
Thirteen-year-old Keira Aslam was home alone at 227 Lincoln Road she saw flames and smoke and called 911 just before 2 p.m. on an afternoon where the temperature was about 90 degrees. Lincoln firefighters and two trucks arrived minutes later, followed shortly by backup fire trucks from Concord, Wayland and Sudbury.
When firefighters got there, they found the back deck fully involved with flames rolling up the side of the house, along with fire under the deck and kitchen windows breaking from the heat. They extinguished the fire and opened the roof and soffits to check for any spread.
The fire started when a mop with flammable deck-refinishing oil was drying on the hot tub cover. “With the extreme heat on Sunday afternoon and the sun beating down, it spontaneously combusted and immediately burned the hot tub and surrounding deck and exterior walls,” said Keira’s mother, Erica Gonella. “It’s very fortunate she was there and they were speedy. It could have brought the whole house down.”
The Lincoln Fire Department’s report estimated there was more than $840,000 in damage to the house, which had an assessed value of $1.4 million (not including land).
Words of advice from Gonella (delivered via email with a smile emoji): “Make sure you properly store and clean flammable materials and don’t let your husbands do home projects :-)”