PITTSTON — A Whitefield Road couple escaped from an early morning fire Saturday that destroyed their home and killed one of their dogs.
Tom Carr and his wife, whose name was not immediately available, were in the home at the time but made it out uninjured after they saw smoke in the home. One of their dogs made it out with them, but one dog died, according to Fire Chief Jason Farris. He said the couple is roughly in their 60s or 70s.
The fire was reported around 3:30 a.m.
Farris said the property includes a small house with a mobile home behind it, connected by a common roof.
The fire started in or near the oil-burning furnace, which the couple had just resumed using for the first time this season. The fire, the chief said, got up into the roof over the home and spread into the roof above the mobile home.
Farris said the home probably is a total loss, but a lot of the owners’ possessions inside are salvageable.
A garage, about 10 feet away, was spared from the flames.
“When we got there, the small house was fully involved (in flames), and smoke was coming out of the eaves of the trailer,” Farris said. “We put water on the fire, went in and made a good, aggressive attack and got that (fire) down.”
He said firefighters focused their efforts on protecting the garage and stopping as much of the spread of the fire at the residence as possible, to limit damage to it.
Farris said the residents said they had a smoke detector, but the batteries had died and not been replaced.
He was unsure whether they had insurance. The couple was taken from the fire scene by their daughter, and Farris said he thinks they had a place to stay.
Firefighters had to cut through multiple layers of roofing to get to the fire.
Whitefield Road is also Route 126.
Farris urged residents to have working smoke detectors in their homes. He also advised people to shut their bedroom doors when sleeping, which can keep smoke from a fire out of a bedroom an extra 10 or 15 minutes.
Firefighters from Randolph, Chelsea, Farmingdale, Gardiner and West Gardiner responded to the initial call and firefighters from Augusta, Whitefield, Jefferson, Wiscasset and Dresden responded to a second call, to help supply water to fight the fire.
Farris said the fire was under control in about an hour and fully out by 6:30 a.m.
After firefighters from multiple agencies departed that fire scene and, in many cases, were still cleaning up their equipment, a second fire was reported in the area, around 7:15 a.m., at an modular home under construction on Brunswick Avenue in Gardiner.
“We were cleaning up (when the Gardiner fire call came in) and literally backed out of the driveway of the station and went to their fire,” Farris said.
Keith Edwards — 621-5647
Twitter: @kedwardskj
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