Dean Shalhoup

Longtime reporter, columnist and photographer, is back doing what he does best ñ chronicling the people and history of Nashua. Reaching 40 years with The Telegraph in September, Deanís insights have a large, appreciative following.

Aside from a few snow days now and then, or the very rare threat of a hurricane, extended school closings were all but unheard of across the nation – until now.

“Closings” may not be quite accurate, as most teachers and students are still in class, but in most cases just not inside the school classrooms themselves.

No matter, the COVID-19 pandemic has, and continues to, wreak unprecedented havoc on almost all aspects of our lives, not the least of which is the drastic departures from normal learning that our kids, teachers and administrators are facing as they try to conduct their classes as best they can.

Leaving politics out of it, it’s safe to say that nobody really knew for sure back in the first few weeks of 2020 that this new virus would explode into a pandemic that to date has sickened 6.4 million people and killed roughly 191,000 of them, just in the United States.

Local folks of a certain age – especially those who would have been teenagers in Hudson going to Alvirne High School in the mid-70s – are sure to remember the year they went to school for three days, Sept. 4-6, then woke up the following Sunday morning to learn they wouldn’t be going to school for some time – not because school was closed, but because it was gone.

Courtesy photo Roaring flames race through Alvirne High School in Hudson on Sept. 8, 1974.

For anyone who was able to make their way out Derry Road to Alvirne High School early that Sunday morning, Sept. 8, 1974, images of bright orange flames illuminating mini-tornadoes of thick, dark smoke billowing skyward are forever seared in their memories.

That would include many of the roughly 200 firefighters who raced to the scene early on in the battle, which, despite valiant efforts, was pretty much lost before the first streams of water ever hit the roaring blaze.

There was one upside: There was only one injury reported, and it was a relatively minor wrist injury to a firefighter.

“Sept. 8, 1974, the largest fire ever to strike the town destroyed 3/4 of the Alvirne High School building on Derry Road,” read the title of a post on retired deputy fire chief and current Hudson selectman Dave Morin’s Facebook page.

While he may be officially retired, Morin still grabs his cameras and runs out to fires and crashes and posts some of his photos. But perhaps the most popular of his posts is his “this day in fire history” series, providing a look back at some of the more notable fires in Hudson, Nashua and sometimes other local towns, accompanied more often than not by photos.

Courtesy photo A ladder truck crew from Nashua sets up shortly after rolling up to the general alarm fire at Alvirne High School in 1974.

Seeing the post the other day triggered my memory as well, especially the photos Morin posted, some of which were taken by now-retired longtime Telegraph cops reporter and photographer Don Dillaby.

Some also came from the camera of also retired Telegraph reporter and editor Claudette Durocher, who made her way to the scene from her Litchfield home.

Durocher interviewed a couple who lived across Derry Road from Alvirne, whom she identified as Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Morey, so we don’t know Mrs. Morey’s first name.

She told Durocher she got up around 4 a.m., glanced out the window but saw “nothing amiss” at or around Alvirne.

But within an hour, her husband was shaking her awake, telling her to come to the window with him to see “towering flames leaping from the rear of the high school.”

Courtesy photo A ladder truck crew from Nashua helps douse hot spots hours after the general alarm fire that destroyed Alvirne High school in 1974 was brought under control.

Morey called in the fire but only dialed the operator because he didn’t have his glasses to see the dial. Around the same time, the late Hudson resident Stan Alukonis spotted the fire and found a police officer to report it. A Londonderry man who saw the flames while driving by raced to police headquarters to report it.

Various accounts state that then-Deputy Fire Chief Robert Buxton was the first firefighter on the scene. He wasn’t even there yet when he radioed in the almost unbelievable report that the entire gym and auditorium were a mass of flames.

“Buxton immediately called for assistance from a number of outside communities,” Dillaby wrote in his day-after story. About a dozen engine and ladder trucks from all over were soon on their way to Alvirne.

Also on his way to Alvirne was then-Fire Chief Frank Nutting – at, legend has it, speeds more typical of a racetrack than the roads leading from Nutting’s place in Wells Beach, Maine, to Alvirne.

As if the fire getting such a head start wasn’t bad enough, it didn’t take long for crews fighting the blaze to come to the realization that their most valuable weapon was betraying them: Water.

Courtesy photo There wasn't much these four firefighters could do with a two-inch hoseline as they wait for additional crews to battle the roaring blaze that eventually consumed Alvirne High School on Sept. 8, 1974.

Back then there was no town water supply out that far, so no hydrants to hook up to. The closest was a mile and a half away, forcing crews ?to couple together a mile and a half worth of hoses.

Back at the scene, crews found the school’s 23,000 gallon cistern and drained it. They did the same to the small pond on the property.

Then came the parade of tanker trucks, which shuttled water back and forth from “filling stations” they set up at any body of water they could find.

As for the cause, well, it seems nothing official was ever recorded. Investigators leaned toward arson, given the fire’s ignition points and the rapid spread, which is an indication of accelerants.

Early-arriving witnesses, including the Moreys, reported hearing several “muffled explosions” early on in the blaze.

Telegraph file photo An aerial photo taken by former Telegraph photographer Don Dillaby from a Nashua Aviation plane shows the remains of Alvirne High School with firefighters still dousing hot spots hours after the fire was brought under control.

Local, state and federal investigators, including an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agent, eventually ruled out “the possibility of a bomb having caused the fire,” the Telegraph reported a week later.

But “authorities said arson has still not been ruled out as the probable cause … ” according to the story. State Fire Marshal George Odell also “ruled out a boiler explosion as the cause.”

About two weeks later, the junior high kids at Hudson Memorial began sharing their school with Alvirne students on a dual-sessions format.

Ernest Morey, meanwhile, shared in his interview with Durocher sentiments that were probably on the minds of a lot of Hudson residents.

“This is an awful blow to Hudson,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “I wonder what is going to happen to the students and how they are going to take care of them.”

That is, take care of the students as long as it doesn’t cost too much: “I also wonder what the fire is going to do to the Hudson tax rate,” Morey wondered out loud.

“It’s already very high.”

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

The Nashua Telegraph's front page of Sept. 9, 1974, broadcasts the stunning news about the Sept. 8 fire that destroyed Alvirne High School.