WMUR has been covering quite a few fires lately, including this one. https://www.wmur.com/article/stratford-fire-barn-no-injuries/60362376 Since the story is not very old, not much detail is available. However, one can adjust their searches of coverage of recent fires by dates, location, damages, victims, and media outlets and come up with a variety of data.
However, what got my attention was the most recent one being far from the others and interestingly close to Canada. I think you know where I’m going with this.
Stratford is not an urban community where the alarm sounds and interrupts the fire station’s spaghetti dinner, and everyone slides down the pole and hurries to the fire. Most people know that rural firefighting is mostly done by volunteers with day jobs who get paged. I’m just a layperson, so you don’t have to take my word. Ask your homeowner’s insurance agent or former Rep. Tom Lanzara if you want to learn more. Tom recently became a Lieutenant.
While rural areas are not necessarily exempt from all urban fire hazards, this Stratford fire reminded me of the Worcester 6.
For those whose photographic memories don’t go that far back in time, Mr. Levesque and another homeless person were living in an old abandoned building in December 1999 when they knocked over a candle, starting a fire that ultimately killed six Worcester firemen who were looking for additional occupants while fighting the fire.
Considering that people like Senator Twitley want you to think that there have only been 21 illegal border crossings in/near Pittsburg, I offer the following supposition. Perhaps those responsible for the Stratford fire are NOT locals.
“The cause of the fire is under investigation” is the last sentence of the WMUR article, which is not an uncommon word choice for a breaking story. One would hope that the investigation will include some rigorous interviewing of neighbors and locals with the same fervor that the viewer observes the detectives using in most Hollywood crime drama shows.
If interviewed people say they saw suspicious activity in the area, particularly involving strangers, it will be interesting to see if WMUR and/or its ilk give it the same follow-up attention as they would with stories that prop up their agenda. An example of that would be what’s going on locally in Lewiston. That shooting happened in November, yet WMUR regularly scrapes the local barrel bottom for fundraisers or follow-up stories that have no ties to NH.
My message to the readers is not to let the Stratford fire investigation fall off the radar because that’s what WMUR would want to have happen during an election year.
