By LINDA KELLETT

C-S-E News Staff

NELLISTON — While the exact cause of a fire that ravaged a local business and left one person homeless early Monday morning may never be known, it’s believed to have started in the area of an outdoor wood furnace.

That’s according to Fort Plain Fire Chief Brian Muehleck, who on Monday attributed firefighters’ difficulty in pinpointing a cause to the amount of destruction. However, fire officials believe the blaze that leveled parts of the Blooming Dale Farm greenhouse and former bakery at 27 East Main St. and gutted others started in the area of the wood boiler because of “the concentration of fire upon [firefighters’] arrival,” he said.

There were no reported injuries.

Despite their losses, business owners Robert Dettmer Jr. and his wife, Christine, were thankful no one was hurt or killed in the fast-moving blaze, which destroyed a lean-to, garage, fifth-wheel camper and all of their contents; gutted a shop and a greenhouse structure used for storage; and melted the siding of their home and a village-owned building in the adjacent Nelliston Park.

Additionally, a next-door apartment that the couple rented to a friend sustained smoke and water damage. Their tenant, St. Johnsville Fire Department Assistant Chief Mayra Rodriguez, escaped unharmed with her pets; but many of her waterlogged belongings were ruined, said a fellow firefighter. St. Johnsville fire personnel were tasked with the removal of her belongings from the residence.

Muehleck said the building in which Rodriguez lived was probably a total loss as it sustained significant fire damage in the back, and the roof had collapsed.

She did not have renter’s insurance.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office dispatched eight area fire departments in response to the intense blaze, which was reported by family members at 12:47 a.m.

Christine said the couple’s grown son, Robert “Butch” Dettmer III, alerted the family to the fire. Their daughter, Carisa, who lives in the Capital District, was not home at the time.

She said, “Our son’s bedroom is downstairs. He was watching TV and thought he heard fireworks. He looked out the window and saw [the flames]. He came tearing up the stairs, yelling to call 911.”

The family’s next concern was to alert and evacuate Rodriguez. By the time their friend was able to leave her apartment, the Dettmer’s camper was in flames. “It spread really fast,” said Christine.

With about 50 firefighters from Fort Plain, South Minden, St. Johnsville, Canajoharie, Ames, and Rural Grove fire departments at the scene and personnel from Glen and town of Mohawk departments on standby, Muehleck said there was sufficient manpower to fight the fire; however, there was little they could do to halt the flames’ progress.

Because the fire was in an open building with “free air, it can go and go and go,” he said. “It took off like a wildfire.”

Christine concurred. “It was just ‘fwoosh.’ It was so fast.”

In addition to “a lot of fire,” firefighters encountered a shortage of water until they started a tanker shuttle.

While there was a nearby hydrant, Muehleck said it couldn’t meet the water demands in the face of such a large blaze.

Consequently, tankers shuttled water from a hydrant near Price Chopper on the east side of the fire; and two additional sources of water were established in Fort Plain. That way, firefighters could fill three or four trucks at a time between the two locations, he said.

In addition to the structures, the Dettmers lost Harold Jr.’s construction tools/equipment as well as gardening tools, pallets of pots, potting soil, supplies, and other building contents.

The family’s first shipment of plants for the greenhouse was scheduled to arrive on Monday. Although they still had a supply of mulch, their other supplies were destroyed. “So now we have to rethink what we can or cannot do,” Christine said.

Their son, who recently graduated from Lincoln Tech and works with his father, had received a shipment of new motorcycles and was awaiting his license to become a Pitster Pro dealer.

Christine said their son pulled all of the bikes out of the shop, but he was unable to retrieve his tools. “He’s beside himself,” she said.

By late-morning, the family was waiting for the insurance adjuster and anticipating the compiling of a list of items lost in the fire. It was too early to estimate the full extent of damages.

Glancing toward the melted siding of their home, which fortunately was not otherwise damaged in the blaze, Christine said the couple’s son, who sounded the alarm, was their hero.

Additionally, she credited the fire departments’ “fantastic” efforts and response. “We are so grateful to them,” she said, “but we praise God above all, who was in control. We’re just thankful everyone is safe and alive.”

In addition to area fire departments, Montgomery County Fire Coordinator Dwight Schwabrow and deputy fire coordinators, emergency personnel from Mid-County and Rural-Metro ambulances, New York State Police, and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office were on hand. It was reported that Nelliston village officials were also present; however they could not be reached for comment before press time.

The last firefighters left the scene at around 8:30 a.m. Monday morning.