Exeter’s Supreme Pizza & Seafood destroyed in fire. Neighboring apartments affected, too.
EXETER — An early morning two-alarm fire destroyed Supreme Pizza & Seafood and caused damage to an adjacent apartment building Monday, according to Fire Chief Eric Wilking.
Exeter dispatch received a report of a fire at 134 Front St. at 2:48 a.m. When police responded three minutes later, Wilking said, they observed a fire between the commercial building housing Supreme Pizza and a nine-unit apartment building at 156 Front St. He said the first fire crews were on scene at 2:53 a.m.
Wilking said the 16 residents of the apartment building safely evacuated. He said two units were damaged in the fire. One tenant has family in the area to stay with, and a family in the other damaged unit was put up in temporary accommodations through a contracted agency, 1-800 Board Up, Wilking said.
Wilking said the cause of the fire remained under investigation. However, he said, firefighters believe it did not originate in Supreme Pizza’s kitchen.
“The way we’re leaning, it doesn’t look like it came from the kitchen,” Wilking said.
Wilking said the rest of the apartment building sustained some smoke damage. He said firefighters were working to make sure the other tenants could return to their apartments by Monday evening, pending a safety inspection and turning on the gas and electricity, which were shut down amid the fire.
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Wilking said the fire was brought under control at 4:32 a.m. Mutual aid was provided by Newmarket, North Hampton, Hampton, Durham, Newfield’s, East Kingston, Kingston, Kensington, Brentwood, Hampton Falls, Portsmouth and Seabrook.
“The fire could’ve been a lot worse, and we would’ve had a lot of people displaced for the holidays,” Wilking said. “Mutual aid did a great job helping us put it out pretty quickly.”
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Exeter NH Supreme Pizza & Seafood destroyed in fire
