A man and his dog were left homeless early Sunday when a wood stove fire ripped through his home on Pease Hill Road in Anson, destroying the house and everything in it.
Tracy Medling was sleeping in a back room of the wood frame house with the door closed before dawn when a smoke detector went off, alerting him that there was a fire, according to Anson fire Chief Stacy Beane.
She said that Medling discovered fire had engulfed the wood stove in the house and he put his dog out a window and them climbed out himself.
“He said the dog was a trooper when he jumped out the window,” Beane said. “He put the dog out first.”
The fire, reported at 5:42 a.m., caused water damage to an art studio attached to the back of the house, according to the chief. Firefighters were able to prevent the fire from destroying the studio.
“He is an artist — there were a lot of solvents and paints in the house,” Beane said of Medling.
At least 50 firefighters responded to the fire and had to maneuver up a steep hill, according to Beane, who said it was snowing early Sunday.
“The roads hadn’t been plowed yet,” she said. “That hill out there is just really steep and we couldn’t gain any momentum getting over it. A Madison truck spun out and A&M Ambulance was crossways in the road. There were probably two or three inches of snow in the road. As soon as you drove over it, it was just like packed ice.”
Firefighters from Anson, North Anson, Madison, Starks, New Portland, Norridgewock, Solon and Skowhegan responded to the fire, as did Madison Electric Works, according to Beane.
“For as many people we had there, it went exceptionally well,” she said.
She said Medling, who commutes back and forth to Florida, would be staying with a friend.
The home was insured, Beane said. Firefighters left the scene around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, according to Beane, who has been fire chief of Anson and North Anson about a year. She had been a firefighter with the towns about 10 years and was fire chief in Pleasant Ridge Plantation about 14 years before that.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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