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Gananda townhouse fire leaves family homeless

Firewalls built between units saves adjoining homes

Four fire departments responded to fight the townhouse fire that gutted the home, but they were able to stop the blaze from spreading to other units.

When Devin Holdraker and Christine Acomb pulled into their driveway on Thursday morning, Christine noticed smoke coming out of a garage across the street at 3219 Pintail View in the Gananda Development in Macedon. She also noticed the sound of crackling and as Devin Called 911, Christine ran across the road and began knocking on doors of the connected townhouse units.

The middle unit began bellowing smoke and flames not only from the bottom garage, but the first floor of the three story unit. At home, at the time, was Elaina Schmidt, who fled the burning structure dressed only in pajamas, holding her two month old baby daughter, Maria Elaina in her arms.

Elaina and the baby live with her fiance Timothy Chandler, at the Pintail address. The dwelling was a complete loss, leaving the family with the clothes on their backs. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but it was felt that Timothy might have been smoking in the garage area earlier in the morning and thought he had completely extinguished his cigarette in a kennel area in the garage before leaving for work. The family dog escaped and was later retrieved and returned to the family.

Within moments the entire middle townhouse was ablaze, as the first firefighters arrived on the scene. An immediate call was made for more backup as West Walworth, Walworth, Lincoln and Macedon Center fire departments responded to the working blaze, along with the Wayne County Sheriff's office and Macedon Police and Town Ambulance.

Elaina and the baby took shelter in the bitter cold at the residence of Holdraker and Acomb as firefighters battled the blaze. One of the cautions came as a car, parked in front of the garage was also fully engulfed in smoke and flames.

The Wayne County Red Cross was notified and helped the family with immediate aid and shelter.

Macedon Town Engineer/Code Enforcement Officer Scott Allen, arrived at the scene and credited the mandatory fire walls built between the townhouse units for saving the entire block from the flames. The townhouses on either side of the middle unit sustained some smoke damage, and the inside wall of one of the adjoining units had its drywall cave in, but the firewalls contained the blaze