When a resident answered a knock at his door Friday evening, the
last thing he expected to hear was that his house was about to go
up in flames.
When Bill Castagnola answered a knock at his door Friday evening, the last thing he expected to hear was that his house was about to go up in flames.
Castagnola said he had just lit a fire in his fireplace and was cleaning the kitchen of his townhouse on Williamsburg Way near Princevalle Street when two young passers-by alerted him that his chimney was ablaze.
Castagnola said he was amazed, since there was no smoke inside the house. He ran outside, saw smoke billowing from his chimney, dialed 911 then threw water on the flames in the fireplace.
Watching fire crews work on his home, Castagnola let out a loud, lengthy sigh.
“I just hope I have a good insurance agent,” he said.
Gilroy and Santa Clara County firefighters arrived at the scene after the emergency call reached dispatchers at 5:13 p.m., Gilroy Fire Capt. Chris Weber said.
Firefighters began an “interior attack” on the fire, Weber said, and fire crews sprayed water through the chimney from below and from atop the home’s roof.
Fire crews also used an axe to cut through the chimney and roof to ensure the flames had stopped spreading, Weber said.
“You have to remove roofing, drywall, any materials to get to the clean, unburnt wood,” Weber said. “That’s why we do so much damage. Not because we want to, but because we have to do what’s necessary to make certain the fire has been extinguished.”
Weber ballparked the damage at $15,000-20,000. He said there were no injuries.
Neighbor Paul Link said he smelled smoke but didn’t think anything of it.
“People are making fires in their fireplaces all the time,” Link said.
Once he heard the fire engines, he knew something was wrong, he said.
Link said he believed all the chimneys in the complex had been checked recently.
“They’re prone to these kinds of fires,” he said. “I don’t know what happened.”
Castagnola, who has lived in the home six years, said his chimney was inspected in 2009 with no reported deficiencies. He said he had actually scheduled for it to be re-examined again on Saturday. Castagnola said some of the chimneys in the complex, including his own, appeared “crooked.”
