Updated at 6:10 p.m..
Vermont State Police say one man is dead following a house explosion in Newfane early Friday morning.
The identity of the person who died has not been released, and the body was taken to the chief medical examiner’s office for an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death and to confirm the identity, according to a press release issued by state police late Friday morning.
Police and several fire departments were called to a single-family home at 521 Route 30 in Newfane around 1 a.m. Friday after receiving multiple calls of an explosion. The man’s body was found inside the home, according to state police.
The house was a total loss, police said.
No one other than the victim was believed to be inside the house at the time of explosion, according to Adam Silverman, a state police spokesperson.
As of Friday afternoon, the cause of the fire and explosion remained under investigation, Silverman said. No other homes were in jeopardy as a result of the explosion, he added.
The home was the scene of a police response earlier this year that has left two state troopers on paid leave as authorities investigated an incident that seriously injured a 61-year-old Newfane man.
Early on the morning of June 17, Sgt. Ryan Wood and Trooper Zachary Trocki from the Westminster barracks responded to a resident calling about a guest acting irrationally and causing damage to the house, according to a state police press release issued at that time.
The arriving troopers saw the man on the roof of the house and tried to coax him down but were unsuccessful, according to police. Eventually, police said, Trocki fired a bean-bag type projectile, striking the man who then fell about 15 feet to the ground.
The use-of-force incident remains under review by the Vermont Attorney General’s Office. The two troopers are now on administrative duty status, meaning that they are doing office work and not on patrol pending the outcome of that review, according to Silverman.
Silverman said he believed that the man who fell from the roof and was taken to the hospital for treatment for his injuries had since been discharged.