Heat lamp for chicks likely cause of Larkfield fire

A heat lamp in a chicken coop likely started a Larkfield house fire Sunday morning, killing eight chicks and displacing a family of four, a Sonoma County Fire official said.

The sound of crackling in the attic just before 7:30 a.m. awakened Blair Benson, who found his Sussex Drive house on fire.

He got his wife, Alicia, and their son and daughter out of the house and tried to douse the flames with a hose, suffering smoke inhalation and burns on his feet, said Cyndi Foreman, a spokeswoman for the fire district.

Damage was estimated at $100,000.

The flames mainly burned the back of the house and into the attic, but the rest of the house sustained smoke and heat damage.

Collectibles stored in the attic were lost, including baseball cards. Firefighters were able to remove and cover some of the family’s belongings, protecting them from the flames, Foreman said.

An investigation couldn’t positively identify the cause of the fire, but it started in the area of the chicken coop, just behind the home, she said. The heat lamp was a probable source.

“They obviously had a heat lamp in there to keep them warm,” Foreman said. “Somehow either that got bumped or jarred.”

Sussex Drive is off Old Redwood Highway, in the Larkfield neighborhood north of Santa Rosa. The area was among the worst hit during the catastrophic 2017 Tubbs fire, which was stopped a few streets away from Benson’s home before it raced across Highway 101.

“They dodged a bullet in 2017,” Foreman said. “But the home is very salvageable.”

The family was planning to stay with relatives.