Dozens battle fire at Hunter health resort
Quick response credited with saving Mountain Valley facility
The Daily Mail
May 27, 2009

HUNTER — Dozens of volunteers battled a fire Tuesday afternoon at the Mountain Valley Health Resort at 48 Clover Road in Hunter.

Firefighters from companies in the Village of Hunter, Haines Falls, Hensonville, Lanesville and Tannersville responded to the emergency, according to Hunter Fire Company Chief John LaVeglia.

The fire, which had been contained to the second and third floors where the massage and sauna rooms are located, broke out around 2 p.m. and took roughly two hours to bring under control.

No firefighters or building occupants were injured in the blaze, LaVeglia said.

LaVeglia said the most challenging aspect of fighting the fire came in extinguishing flames in a crawlspace between the third floor and the roof.

He said his team used the company’s newly acquired ladder truck to reach the crawlspace and the roof.

Without the truck, the team would have had to prop ladders against the building’s side and firefighters would have had to walk on the building’s roof, he said.

This would have been dangerous because the building’s roof could have collapsed during the blaze, LaVeglia said.

“If we did not have the truck we probably would not have been able to ventilate as well,” he said.

LaVeglia said the second and third floors of the roughly 60-year-old wooden structure had sustained smoke, water and fire damage.

The team monitored the structure throughout the evening and into the night watching for hotspots, like one that flared up shortly before 6 p.m.

The Greene County Cause and Origin team arrived in the evening to begin its investigation into how the fire started, LaVeglia said Tuesday night.

Resort Chief Financial Officer Michael Feldman said he thought the fire had been caused by an electrical problem.

“I heard something pop,” Feldman said of the first indication that something might be wrong in the building.

Feldman said he went to check the circuit box and staff in the resort reported seeing flames coming through the floor below. Smoke came from the switchbox, he said.

Feldman said he discharged a fire extinguisher in an effort to quell the flames before leaving the building.

The second floor had recently been redone, Feldman said, adding that that he was just glad there were no injuries.

He said firefighters had told him that the first floor, which contains the resort’s kitchen and dining facilities, suffered water damage. But, Feldman said, he and the staff hope to reopen the resort as quickly as possible after those facilities could be relocated.

Resort manager Melissa Fiducia said Hunter Fire second assistant chief Gary Goodrich had worked to ensure that items had been removed from the building to prevent their damage.

“He was very sympathetic to our personal belongings,” she said.

She said she was grateful to all the firefighters and Tannersville Rescue Squad and Hunter Ambulance teams, which also responded to the call, as well as to Ronnie MacGregor, of MacGregor’s Pub, who provided food for the volunteers.