Aaron Sousa was 14 and off to school on the morning of May 7, 2013 when a sudden fire tore through his family’s 89 Jillian Way home in Westport.

The Sousa’s have since rebuilt on the same piece of land but Aaron says he won’t forget the impact of returning home to see almost all they owned in ashes.

“The important thing is that everybody got out okay,” he said. His older sister Megan and grandmother Maria Sousa both got out in the nick of time after a neighbor, Robert Morotti, who was out walking his dog at 8:39 a.m. alerted the occupants that fire was roaring up the back side of the house.

Something else was important to Aaron — “We didn’t want anyone else to go through this.”

The son of Glenn and Gelene Sousa, now 18, put that resolve to good use recently when the time came to carry out a community service project to earn his Eagle Scout badge with guidance from his Scout leader Paul Tetrault.

“Since going through that fire we realized that there were things it would have been very helpful to have” to make it through the painful task of sorting through the resulting mess.

To that end he recruited friends and family to help assemble emergency kits packed with the sorts of things that come in especially handy for fire victims.

The kits, 38 of them so far, were delivered to the Westport Fire Department which has already had occasion to hand out several.

Inside are items including work gloves, plastic garbage bags, disinfectants, sponges flashlights and more.

Aaron’s father said that his son remembered well the search for precious family possessions being hampered by the lack of basics like gloves and flashlights.

They are living in their new house, that looks much like the previous house, now but recovery was a slow, sometimes exasperating process.

Complicating matters was the chore of dealing with a sometime less-than-helpful insurance company and adjustors who provided first one, then another assessment of damage and replacement costs.

“You have what you believe to be the best coverage, everything covered, and then …

Well thankfully that’s behind us now and we have moved on,” Mr. Sousa said.

Fast moving fire

By the time Mr. Morotti and his dog noticed the fire that morning, it was already too late to save the house.

The fire, whose cause never was determined, started by or on a back-side deck and raced quickly up the side of the house to the roof. By the time the first engines arrived, just a few minutes after being alerted by a 911 call, much of the house was ablaze and the roof was minutes from collapse.

A similar fire, also in a relatively new house, had destroyed a house on Meadowbrook Lane in Westport just days earlier. Investigators suspected that one had begun when something caused dry mulch along the side of the house to ignite.

Given the similarities, mulch was high on the list of early suspects this time too until fire investigators discovered that there was no mulch beside or below the Jillian Way deck. Instead they found stone.

Deputy Fire Chief Allen Manley said that Mr. Morroti told investigators that shortly before he saw the smoke, he had noticed a smell like burning leaves or brush. The deck, though, was a composite (Trex brand) material with a plastic awning overhead — which would presumably smell much different when burning.

Similarities both fires shared are the facts that both started outside, both moved with extraordinary speed, and both led to quick roof failures.

"We are finding that with new construction it can almost be worse for the fire to start outside than in," Deputy Manley said at the time.

A fire that starts inside can be restrained initially by sheetrock barriers and closed spaces, he said.

Most new houses are built with soffit vents designed to pull outside air up through the roof structure to ridge vents.

"So what happens is that when a fire starts outside" as these did, "the heat and flame get sucked right in the soffit vent and up into the roof."

Once inside, the flames encounter unprotected wood construction.

Today's truss-type roof designs are also vulnerable. Often built from fairly lightweight lumber, they rely on design less than massive size for their strength. And unlike old construction in which beams were connected by long, heavy snails or spikes, these can rely on fasteners that scarcely penetrate the wood.

"My house is old and the roof rafters are 4x8s — they could burn for a long time without giving way," Deputy Manley said. The new truss construction is very strong in almost every circumstances, he added, except fire.

"In these two cases, the roofs were gone in no time."

SIDEBAR

Firefighter say thank you

The Westport Fire Department planned to offer its thanks and a letter of accomplishment to Aaron Sousa this Wednesday (after Shorelines went to press).

That letter, signed by Fire Chief Brian R. Legendre and Deputy Chief Allen N. Manley Jr., stated:

Dear Aaron,

Please accept our sincere congratulation on obtaining the rank of Eagle Scout. With less than 5% of the boys who entering Scouting attaining this highest achievement, you have shown your commitment to demonstrating the Scout Spirit by representing the ideal attitude of Scouting and keeping the Scout promise of helping others.

Following the fire in your family’s home on May 7, 2013, a fire that damaged or destroyed many of your personal belongings, you took the lessons learned in living through such a difficult and traumatic event and turned them into an opportunity to help others who may be faced with a similar tragedy. Where others may have thought only of their own loss, you found an opportunity to give back.

In providing a small box of practical items to help strangers, you also unknowingly have given them their first step in rebuilding their lives. Your spirit of caring is carried in each box as much as the items inside. These boxes contain the hope of rebuilding burned and blackened lives and they carry a promise that things will get better with some hard work. The personal letter included in each box not only gives instructions for use of each item but lets them know that they are not alone in the fight to recover.

Aaron, you have met the requirements of the Boy Scouts of America and received their highest honor, you have shown compassion and caring for your fellow man and you have demonstrated your citizenship. You may be proud of your accomplishments which reflect the best of the Town of Westport.

Congratulations and best wishes with all your future endeavors.