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A Wiscasset fire engine exits a gate at Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset June 5. Firefighters from Wiscasset and six neighboring towns extinguished a fire in a garage the jail uses for its industries program. (J.W. Oliver photo) |
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By J.W. Oliver and Kathy Onorato
A Two Bridges Regional Jail inmate’s improper disposal of a rag with linseed oil on it resulted in a fire that damaged a garage at the Wiscasset jail June 5.
Wiscasset firefighters, with help from six area fire departments, extinguished the fire. “Nobody got hurt,” Wiscasset Fire Chief T.J. Merry said. “Nobody was in the building.”
The fire “caused a huge amount of damage,” Correctional Administrator Col. Mark Westrum said. “We’re trying to determine right now whether the entire building and its contents are destroyed or not.”
The jail is “awaiting final word from the adjuster who handles our claims, and we’ll see what happens,” Westrum said.
The three-bay garage houses the jail’s industries program. The jail will rebuild the space. “The whole jail was built with a programs philosophy principle in mind,” Westrum said. “It may take us a while, but we will rebuild.”
The inmate had been working on an Adirondack chair in the finish room the day before the fire, Westrum said. The inmate placed the damp rag into a plastic bucket.
The inmate “moved it aside and forgot to tell the industries officer he was still working with one of the rags,” Westrum said. “It was just one rag that combusted in the night and caught that plastic on fire and it just spread.”
The proper method to dispose of such rags is to lay the rags flat to dry prior to disposal, according to the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office. Linseed oil, a common woodworking product, can self-heat and eventually self-combust in certain conditions.
“It appears as though it was an honest mistake,” Westrum said. Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Detective Robert McFetridge, the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office, and jail personnel all interviewed the inmate.
“We don’t find anything in his interviews with all of the investigators that were involved to indicate anything other than just that it was an accident,” Westrum said.
“There will definitely be some changes in the way we close the shop at the end of a work day,” he said.
Westrum praised his staff and local firefighters for their speedy, efficient response to the fire.
The fire department “did an outstanding job,” he said. “They did the best they could to save the main structure of the building. Their response was awesome.”
A particular concern for the staff was the proximity of the fire to a propane tank. “We went into lockdown immediately and moved inmates out of the pod that was closest to the potential threat with the propane tank,” Westrum said.
“We stayed in lockdown for about an hour and then resumed normal operations when the fire department gave the all-clear,” he said.
The Wiscasset Fire Department was paged out at 5:55 a.m. and cleared the scene at approximately 8:15 a.m., Merry said.
“We had another great response from our mutual aid companies,” Merry said. The Alna, Bath, Dresden, Edgecomb, Westport Island, and Woolwich fire departments provided mutual aid. Edgecomb and Dresden covered Wiscasset’s fire station.
Maine State Prison inmates built the structure in 2005, prior to the construction of the jail. It was originally a transition office space for corrections staff and a maintenance garage before the industries program moved in.
“As our industries program grew and we were building more product and had more demands for our product, we kind of outgrew the space we had inside the jail,” Westrum said.
The fire comes at a particularly bad time for the program, as the jail recently opened a seasonal kiosk on the Wiscasset waterfront to sell its products.
“We were selling product out of that kiosk as fast as the inmates could make it,” Westrum said. The jail probably has enough product to stock the kiosk for another week.
The jail will consider temporary options for the program. The inmates learn job skills and earn about $1.30 an hour in the program, which helps pay their fines, restitution to victims, and room-and-board fees.
