The Council Room

[David Bentley]

Late this afternoon I received a phone call from Tom Falcon saying that there was a lightning strike fire on the Wyanoke property.

I met him at the Carry Beach and we could see heavy smoke from the Red Roof cottage area. The emergency personnel had the area blocked off to civilians, so we could only get as close as the Carry Beach. From the location of the smoke plume, and the talk of the people gathered to watch, we felt it was probably the house my grandmother used to live in, known as "Pinehurst", not the Red Roof cottage.

Having served in the volunteer fire service for almost 20 years, I can tell you that fire is no respecter of anyone's rights, property, or treasure, and all a fire department can do is hope for the best.

This particular building was original to the property when my grandfather bought the land in 1908 and had housed my grandfather, then my grandfather and grandmother, my father, my wife and me, and our older daughter, and, along the way, in the early days, several other couples who had been instrumental at Camp during the early days, plus countless visitors during all the summers.

Several years ago the family that bought that particular lot within Wyanoke Harbors carefully dismantled the old cottage, saved a lot of the interesting wood construction, and built a new home incorporating a lot of the past material into their new home. While this was going on I spent many visits on site with the owners answering questions about "What was this?, what was that?". I deeply appreciated their concern and care for the property that had been such a huge piece of my life.

From what Tom and I were told today, there were no personal injuries, and we don't know the extent of the damage, although it didn't look good.
_________________
C-1 49 J-7 52 S-3 55 J-10 58
C-7 50 J-7 53 S-2 56 J-8 59
C-8 51 J-4 54 S-7 57 (JA) J-8 60 - 64
1965 - 1968 Military service
Pine Cone 68 - 75 (with wife,Sherry,
and daughter Tracey)
Wolfeboro - full-time since 1997

[Steve Hood]

Gosh, David. How very sad, indeed.

Your comments bring back some other memories. In addition to Pinehurst and Red Roof, I seem to remember that there was a third building in that immediate area. Was there also a Pine Cone house? I think I recall it.

And also possibly another fourth house immediately off the Midget Beach, looking out toward Molanson's beach.
_________________
1951: C-9. F. Whitemore, P. Durkee.
1952-53: J-11. E. Wilkins.
1957: S-7 D. Irons, JA
1958: J-4 W.Dann JC
1959: J-1 G.Engstrom JC
1960-61-63: J-6. Councillor
1964: JA-2. Councillor

[David Bentley]

Pinehurst cottage was essentially between Red Roof cottage and Pine Cone cottage. These three were the only residences in that area, and there was a garage behind and across the driveway from Red Roof.

Pinehurst was so named following a vacation my grandparents took to Pinehurst, NC, probably in the 1930s, and it was at this time that they brought back with them some very large pinecones from southern pines and hung them outside the little cottage by the beach, thus the origin of the name "Pine Cone cottage". (So, David Ayars, how's that for a run-on sentence?!)

While Tom and I were watching the fire, and we actually could only see rising smoke, some people standing near us said they had seen the smoke from the Marriott's property, and another couple said they were in downtown Wolfeboro on a deck and they couldn't see anything, but the cloud of smoke was very heavy and hanging low over Wolfeboro Bay.

In all the years of Camp, my Dad always felt confident about his staff, but he always worried about "Mother Nature" and the unpredictability of severe weather ("Be alert to the possibility of a weather change"). We had tents blow down, we had boats tip over, and we had medical accidents, but, and for this we must thank God, we never had a problem of this nature. We had some pretty nasty thunder storms, and I remember lightning hitting the Junior tennis courts chicken-wire fence and taking several years off my life. J-8 was a nice place to live, but not during a lightning storm. And what about the men and boys who were off-property on canoe trips or hiking trips?

The weather Man my try to predict the weather, but, Mother Nature will do what she wants.
_________________
C-1 49 J-7 52 S-3 55 J-10 58
C-7 50 J-7 53 S-2 56 J-8 59
C-8 51 J-4 54 S-7 57 (JA) J-8 60 - 64
1965 - 1968 Military service
Pine Cone 68 - 75 (with wife,Sherry,
and daughter Tracey)
Wolfeboro - full-time since 1997

[Mike Freeland]

Sorry to hear about Pinehurst. Let us know what you find out.

I was really interested in the origins of the Pine Cone and Pinehurst names. I love that kind of historical information about Wyanoke. I'd like to know more about the sawmill in Johnson Cove - how long it was there, why it was there etc. It was in ruins when I first saw it in '56.

As to the weather, I know exactly what you mean about out-of-camp weather dangers. If I'm not mistaken, Dave Ayars was with Garth and me on a trip up Huntington's Ravine on Mt. Washington, on which we camped next to the Harvard cabin just below the Nelson Crag. We had a particularly wild thunderstorm, and lightning struck a huge hardwood tree within about 50 yards of where we were camped. A very memorable experience, I'll say.

Of course hiking the ridge above timberline in stormy weather was a tense experience too. We were always greatful to get to the huts. Garth and I were knocked off our feet on Mt. Katahdin by ground current when lightning struck a cairn just up the trail from where we were. At that point, I wished that my pack frame had been made of anything but aluminum.

The thing that worried me most at camp was the possibility of fire, with all those cookout fires every Thursday and OD fires at night. Are you aware of any fire incidents at Wyanoke in its history Dave?
_________________
'56-C-9 C. Mosher '57-C-9 Bill Feaster
'58-J-14 H. Peavy '59-J-11 G. Wood, C. Duncan
'60-S-8 R. Leavitt, D. Hemphill '61-S-1 E. Slocum
'62-JA-1 H. Dunbar '63-C-2 (JC)
'64-C-5, (JC) Councilor
'65-C-9 '66 - '72-J-8
'73-JA1 '75-J-6

[DavidAyars]

So sorry, David, to hear that apparently Pinehurst was destroyed, at least according to one story I found mentioning this fire on the web:
http://www.wmur.com/weather/lightning-strikes-wolfeboro-home-sugar-hill-post-office/27371804

My first thought was, weren't the Red Roof-area homes somewhat protected from direct lightning strikes by large overhanging trees? But apparently according to another brief web account, the tree roots conducted the lightning, which certainly can happen. I am not a fan of big trees near my house--the shade is nice but this is one of several things that can go wrong with that arrangement. See what happened generally to the camp property during the 1938 hurricane for one of the others.

Mike, I certainly do remember that lightning strike on the side of Mt. Washington. When the thunder bang is simultaneous with the lightning flash and rattles a few dental fillings loose, you know you were too close for comfort. Not a great time to be in a tent though you and Garth got us down to the safest place we could be in time. Fortunately everybody in all these close encounters with weather was safe. Storms blow up so fast in northern NH.
_________________
Camper: J-8 1965 (Kevin Ryan), J-8 1966 (Mike Freeland), S-6 1967 (Russ Hatch), S-3 1968 (Jeremy Cripps), and JA-2 1969 (Dan Mannis).
JC: J-2 1970 (Bill Bettison) and J-3 1971 (Gene Comella). Councilor 1972, J-5 1973, and JA-1 1974 & 1975

[David Bentley]

You are right, David, about the big trees, and the ironic situation in this case is that Pinehurst/new home sat about as low as you can get on the Camp property, with the land going up rather steeply directly behind it. One would think the lightning would have been attracted to something higher up.

Apparently, lightning struck the tree, traveled down the tree and through a root, intersecting with the electrical grounding rod attached to the in-coming power socket, and then into the homeowners electrical panel and subsequentgly igniting the house. Another irony is that the grounding rod, I thought, was suposed to take current away from the electrical system as a protection to the house.

Sad, sad, story.
_________________
C-1 49 J-7 52 S-3 55 J-10 58
C-7 50 J-7 53 S-2 56 J-8 59
C-8 51 J-4 54 S-7 57 (JA) J-8 60 - 64
1965 - 1968 Military service
Pine Cone 68 - 75 (with wife,Sherry,
and daughter Tracey)
Wolfeboro - full-time since 1997

[DavidAyars]

[Mike Freeland]