Bristol Crews Battled Yacht Club Fire Sunday

BRISTOL, RI—Crews battled a two-alarm fire at the Bristol Yacht Club on Sunday. The fire broke out around 1 p.m., but according to fire Chief Michael A. DeMello, it likely had been smoldering for several hours. The cause is still under investigation, but officials suspect smoking materials tossed in mulch are the culprit.

No one was hurt, the chief said.

"The building sustained quite a bit of damage on the South side, however will be repairable," he said. "With the assistance of Warren, Portsmouth, Swansea on scene, crews were able to stop the fire from destroying the entire building."

He described a "very labor intensive fire," which "required opening holes into ceilings and walls to find hidden fire." Part of the challenge could be explained by indications that "the fire had been burning deep in some void spaces for several hours, possibly due to the discarding of smoking materials in the mulch sometime in the previous 12 -18 hours," he said.

Tiverton and Portsmouth also provided mutual aid.

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