Dresden Fire Department was assisted by 11 area departments in extinguishing a blaze that destroyed a 19th century home on June 29, according to Dresden Fire Chief Steve Lilly.
The fire started in an ell of the colonial-style home at 406 Cedar Grove Road and traveled up between the studs of the building, Lilly said.
“The fire traveled from an ell right up through in a roof and it burned the roof off before it actually burned through any of the other floors,” he said.
Dresden Fire was paged out at 7:22 a.m. and did not leave the scene until 4:30 that afternoon, Lilly said.
Eleven other departments – Richmond, Pittston, Alna, Wiscasset, Newcastle, Westport Island, Woolwich, West Bath, Bowdoinham, Bowdoin, and Litchfield – assisted with mutual aid, Lilly said.
“It was mainly for water as far as we don’t have any hydrants in the area. We have to haul all our water to the scene,” he said.
When the fire was finally knocked down, four walls of the three-story home were still standing but were not safe to leave upright, Lilly said. The department used an excavator to knock the walls down for safety reasons.
“There was nothing really holding everything all together,” Lilly said.
Westport Island Fire Department’s compressed air foam system was used to put a thick, smothering blanket of foam on the remains of the home to help prevent any flare-ups. Still, Dresden Fire had to return to the scene the following morning for about two hours to fight a re-spark.
“[The foam will] only soak in so far and we had a lot of thick debris there from all the floors that collapsed, so that’s why we ended up going Sunday,” Lilly said.
James Crawson, who lived alone at the home, was able to get out safely and there were no injuries to any emergency personnel, Lilly said.