East Lyme Condo Caught Fire When Power Came Back On

A fire at Woodridge condominium complex at 11 King Arthur Drive in East Lyme totally destroyed one end unit and damaged the kitchen in the condo next door earlier today. The fire started in the kitchen of Unit M when the power came back on at around 11:20 a.m., said East Lyme Deputy Fire Marshal Chris Taylor.

Marcia Harriman, who owns the unit, was cooking when Hurricane Sandy knocked out the power. In the four days that followed, she forgot that she never turned off the electric burner. She was out shopping when CL&P fixed the lines and burner came back on.

"Nobody was home at the time," said next door neighbor Marissa Way, whose own kitchen was damaged by the fire. Another neighbor saw smoke billowing out of the windows and called the fire department.

Witnesses said fire fighters put out the blaze in about 15 minutes, effectively preventing the fire from spreading to more units. "The fire house did a great job," said Taylor. Sadly, fire fighters weren't able to save Harriman's two cats, which died in the blaze. 

"It's unbelieveable the damage in there in that amount of time," said Harriman. "They're calling it totalled. I'm still, like, in shock."  

"We just have water damage. Hers is a complete loss," said Way. Even so, the work required to fix Way's condo will be fairly extensive. The wall the two units share will have to be taken out to make repairs to wires destroyed by the fire.

As eager as she had been to have the power back Way said, "we would have loved to have the power off a little bit longer!"

"I would love to get the word out to everybody: Really think about what you were doing when the power went off," said Harriman. "I had forgot completely that I was making spaghetti sauce!"