Cabin fire at Cacapon Park

Area firefighters responded to a fire in one of the rental cabins at Cacapon State Park on early Sunday morning. The blaze started in the chimney and spread into the walls and into the floor joists, Berkeley Springs Volunteer Fire Chief Todd Ruppenthal said.

The fire call came in at 12:56 a.m. on January 6 for a cabin on Wintergreen Way inside the park. The man who was renting the cabin woke up to the smoke alarm going off and called it in.

When firefighters arrived on the scene, they saw a little smoke coming out of the cabin, Ruppenthal said. The wall between the chimney and the bedroom was hot, so they opened the wall. When they did, flames and smoke shot out.

The fire also got underneath into a crawl space below the floor so they also had to cut open some of the floor, he said. It took a long time to open up the wall and the floor. They had the fire knocked down within three minutes once they could get to it.

Units from Berkeley Springs, South Morgan, Great Cacapon, Reynolds Store and Gainesboro Volunteer Fire Departments responded to the cabin fire, along with Morgan County Emergency Medical Services. Firefighters were on the scene until around 2:15 a.m.

The cabin renter and his wife were not injured in the fire, Ruppenthal said. There were no injuries to firefighters.

Ruppenthal estimated the damages to the cabin at around $3,000. They’ll have to replace the wall and the floor. There was a little smoke damage, but they set up fans right away to blow the smoke out, he said.
Ruppenthal noted that the fire scene has been pretty quiet lately. He said they started out to a house fire in Hancock on Christmas morning, but turned around and came back after it was discovered to be just a chimney fire.

Ruppenthal said they’re usually dealing with a house fire every Christmas. A lot of people throw their Christmas wrapping paper into their wood stove, which is very dangerous.

“It goes up like gasoline,” he said.