Fire destroys a home Saturday afternoon, March 20, 2021, in New Bridge near Richland.

NEW BRIDGE — A fire that started Saturday afternoon, March 20, destroyed a home in New Bridge, about three miles north of Richland.

Neither of the two people who live on the property, Carmelita Holland and her son, Gary, was hurt, nor were any of the 25 or so volunteer firefighters who worked on the blaze, said Dave Kingsbury, chief of the Eagle Valley Rural Fire Protection District.

That was “very fortunate,” Kingsbury said, because the abundance of vehicles and other items on the property were obstacles that posed hazards for firefighters, particularly given the dense black smoke the fire produced.

Kingsbury said several people reported smoke around 1 p.m. Saturday. The property is at 43080 Main St. in New Bridge, an unincorporated community along Eagle Creek.

The black smoke was due in part to tires burning on several vehicles on the property, Kingsbury said.

He said the apparent cause of the fire was a problem with a damper on a woodstove in a separate, smaller structure where Gary Holland lives.

Kingsbury said it’s possible that embers from the woodstove ignited the fire, which didn’t damage the smaller structure where Gary lives but did spread to the larger home where his mother lives. The buildings are about 75 to 80 feet apart, Kingsbury said.

Among the potentially dangerous items on the property were multiple oxgyen-acetylene tanks for cutting torches, and several propane tanks.

Kingsbury said none of the tanks exploded, but there were explosions inside the home when the fire reached gun ammunition and reloading supplies.

He said the house was a total loss, although firefighters poured enough water into one part of the home that some papers and other items were salvageable after the fire was out.

Carmelita Holland is a longtime local historian who has much information about Baker County mining history. She wrote a book, “Stories, Legends and Some Oregon History.”

According to the Baker County Assessor’s Office, the 1,040-square-foot home was built in 1930 and has a market value of $8,970 based on a 2017 appraisal.

Volunteers from the Eagle Valley, Pine Valley, Keating, Medical Springs and Baker Rural fire departments also responded to the fire, Kingsbury said.

A fire truck from the North Powder department was en route but its engine broke down, he said.

In a post on the city of Richland’s Facebook page, local resident and journalist Sherrie Kvamme wrote that Don Flowers bought all the pizzas from the Shorthorn restaurant in Richland, and women from the Nazarene Church baked the pizzas for the firefighters. Other local residents brought drinking water for the volunteers.

Donations of cash and groceries for Carmelita Holland are being collected at the Hitching Post in Richland, according to the post, and a GoFundMe account is being set up.