Watching from a safety point, Alton Bay Christian Conference Center Retreat Coordinator Brad Smith said he doesn't know yet how many cottages were destroyed by the Easter Sunday fire but believes "one big section of the campground" is in ruins.

Smith said there were 175 cottages and a chapel on the property — all of them individually owned by members.

"There was nobody in any of them," Smith said adding the center had not yet begun spring cleaning and none of them had any water.

"This is another awful day in Alton," said Selectman Pat Fuller recalling the string of natural disasters to strike the southern Belknap County community, including the Dec. 14, 2007, blaze that destroyed the historic Alton Pavilion, the wild fire that burned out of control for three days atop Mount Major, and the tornado that leveled a section of the community last August.

"I heard the first explosion at around 4:30 p.m.," Fuller said. "We've since heard about 10 of them."

She said the dense spacing of the cottages has long been discussed and Sunday's fire "was something they all fear."

Fuller said this is not the first fire to ravage the conference center that has been operating since 1863 on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Former Historical Society Chair Philip Laurion said there was "a very large fire" in the campground in what he thought was 1940s. "I believe it was actually covered by the Boston Globe."

The Rev. Peter Bolster, who is also a selectman and a state representative said his research showed the fire was in 1945 — the day after Aug. 15 or V-J Day — the day the allies declared victory over Japan following World War II.

"I believe it was a very similar situation with a high wind that kept spreading the flames," said Bolster.

Emmy Pijoan and her son Jim are the housekeeping staff for the center and she works there year round for half days.

They're all little houses about 10 feet apart. "You can reach out and borrow a cup of sugar through the windows," she said.

She said Rev. John Fogel and his wife and daughter are the only full-time residents of the compound and at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, she didn't know if their home had been spared. "I know the reverend was staying in his house until and if the fire department told him to leave, but his wife and daughter did leave," she said.

Pijoan said she watched the fire from across the bay on Route 28A. I saw the explosions from across the bay. "I've never seen bombs, but I imagine that's what they look like. Little mushroom clouds of smoke.

"It was just this enormous thing. I had to look away," Pijoan said.