Car crashes into house, silo catches fire in Lowville on same day
Jun. 13—LOWVILLE — A car crashing into a house and a silo catching fire were two of seven calls the New Bremen Fire Department responded to this weekend, almost breaking the department's week-long record of eight.
"It's been a long weekend," New Bremen Fire Chief Ben Buell said Sunday.
It started early Friday afternoon, when he and his department were dispatched to Route 812 for a car crashing into a house. Mr. Buell said the vehicle came to rest about halfway lodged into the home. He said an elderly driver was entrapped, but EMT personnel and firefighters were able to slowly pull him from the vehicle. He said it appeared the only person inside the house was a woman who was not harmed.
The chief said National Grid cut power to the home, and a tow truck did most of the work pulling the vehicle out.
The family who was living there is getting assistance from the American Red Cross, Mr. Buell said. A news release from the Red Cross stated that its volunteers were providing necessities such as shelter, food and clothing to two adults and one 8-year-old child.
Again on Friday, New Bremen was dispatched with the Lowville Fire Department for a fire at a farm on East State Street. A silo partially full of what he thought was grain or corn had caught fire. The Lowville department used its 100-foot aerial truck to get to the silo, open the hatch and drown out the flames from the top.
Mr. Buell's department would end up returning to the silo Saturday for what appeared to be a rekindled fire. The cause is suspected to be heat and humidity.
New Bremen's seven calls in roughly two days stacks up to their record of eight calls in a week. They normally do somewhere between 30 and 40 calls a year, Mr. Buell said.
