A home on Bangor Road in Clinton was destroyed by fire Wednesday. Officials say the woman who owned the home lost all her belongings. About 18 firefighters from Clinton and surrounding towns responded. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel
CLINTON — A fire Wednesday destroyed a mobile home on Bangor Road that the owner was using to store her belongings until she was able to repair it and move back in from the camper trailer she’s been living in on the front lawn.
Victoria Bowring, 51, said she was on her lunch break as a volunteer driver for Kennebec Valley Community Action Program when her son’s girlfriend, Penny Eastland, called to say the trailer was on fire. Eastland and Bowring’s son, David Bowring, live in another camper trailer on the property.
Family photographs were among the items pulled from a Clinton home owned by Victoria Bowring that was destroyed by fire Wednesday on the Bangor Road. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel
“It had gotten to the point where the roof leaked and there was mold inside,” Bowring said at the scene. “We were going to rebuild it, take down the insulation in the walls. I moved into the camper trailer in October. I have asthma and can’t live where there’s mold.”
About 18 firefighters from Clinton, Burnham, Canaan, Fairfield, Pittsfield and Winslow responded to the scene at 1842 Bangor Road, and Albion firefighters covered the Clinton fire station, according to Clinton fire Chief Travis Leary. The home is about 3 miles from downtown Clinton. Delta Ambulance and Clinton police also were at the scene.
Investigator Larry Morrill of the Office of State Fire Marshal arrived to help determine the cause of the fire, though Leary and Bowring said an extension cord from the home to her camper was in use and it appeared that’s where the fire started.
“We got a call for a possible electrical fire they believed was out, but when we got here we saw heavy smoke,” Leary said. “It will be a total loss.”
Morrill said he had just begun investigating and had not yet determined a cause.
Eastland said she and David Bowring arrived about 1:15 p.m. and soon afterward saw smoke coming from the home.
“We called 911 and then we called Vicki,” Eastland said. “We threw buckets of water at it and we thought it was out. We about told the fire department not to come, and all of a sudden it started crackling.”
Victoria Bowring, right, whose Clinton home was destroyed by fire Wednesday, speaks with state fire investigator Larry Morrill at the scene. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel
Victoria Bowring said she has renter’s insurance on the property. She had purchased the mobile home, new, in 1995 and had only three payments left on it. Wednesday’s was the second fire at the home in two years, she said, adding that people had broken into it and stolen things.
“I can’t catch a break,” she said. “I just got caught up financially because I had COVID. I was in the hospital for a week.”
She said if anyone has a trailer they want to donate, “that would be a miracle. I want to be back in my house. I raised my kids here. That’s what hurts.”
She said she was sorry to lose photographs and all of her children’s belongings that were stored in the home. The extension cord from the home was used to plug in an electric heater she used for warmth in her camper trailer. She lives in the camper with her service dog Sadie, a pit bull terrier.
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