In the midst of the blizzard Jan. 12, Jefferson Fire and Rescue responded to a house fire at 840 South Clary Rd. at around 11:45 a.m.
“Engine 2, which operates out of the south Jefferson fire station, was on scene in about five minutes,” said Jefferson Fire Chief Wally Morris.
Despite the rapid response, the home, rented by 61-year-old John Stevens, was “pretty much totaled,” Morris said. The rooms that were saved suffered heavy heat, smoke and water damage.
Stevens lived alone and was the only one home at the time; he was not injured in the fire.
The damage was too severe for the Fire Marshal’s Office to determine an exact cause, but Morris said it started in a section of house containing a wood stove. Stevens told Morris he had a “pretty good fire going in the wood stove,” Morris said.
It is also possible that the fire was electrical, as Stevens reported lights flickering in the morning before the fire.
That morning Stevens started a fire in the woodstove, read the paper and got on his computer. Then the electricity cut out momentarily, Stevens said in a telephone interview on Jan. 17.
When the storm started, Stevens went outside to hook up his plow. He was outside getting his truck unstuck and plowing before he noticed smoke coming out of the house, he said.
“The fire trucks just kept coming and coming,” Stevens said. “They came from all over, and it was amazing to watch them all working together – but it was just too late.”
In an email to The Lincoln County News on Jan. 13, Stevens thanked all the emergency crews that responded to his home, as well as Central Maine Power for their quick response shutting off power after the main service line to the house went down.
“We should all be grateful to these members of our communities for their training and dedication to our safety,” Stevens wrote. “I wish I could thank each of these people individually, but this letter will have to suffice. Thank you one and all.”
The Fire Marshal’s Office has completed their investigation and the fire is not considered suspicious, Morris said.
Newcastle, Alna and Whitefield also responded to the scene. Jefferson fire fighters cleared the scene at around 3:30 p.m.
This is the third time in Jefferson fire fighters’ memory that they have responded to fires at this address.
The most recent was a minor fire two years ago; that fire started from a wood-burning furnace, which Stevens hasn’t used since, he said.
Before Stevens started renting the house, “it had burned and been fixed I don’t know how many times,” Stevens said. When he moved in, he did a lot of work repairing the wood-burning furnace, which had clearly started a fire before, he said.
“I thought I had made it safe,” Stevens said, but when it started the minor fire two years ago, he stopped using it.
He had since relied on the wood stove and occasionally an oil burner, and had never had any problem with the wood stove prior to the fire on Jan. 12, he said.
Stevens’ renter’s insurance will cover much of what he lost, he said.
He has since found a new place to rent, but on Jan. 17 when he returned to the property to retrieve some items he had stored in the barn, he found that he had been robbed sometime after the fire.
“Most of my tools, a brand new arc welder and a generator were gone,” Stevens said.
Stevens said he found tire tracks around the barn from a dually pickup truck. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident.
Anyone with information on the theft is encouraged to call the LCSO at 882-6576.
Stevens was in relatively good spirits on Jan. 17, thanking many people involved with the recent events. Along with his thanks to the emergency crews that responded to the fire, Waltz Pharmacy was incredibly helpful in sorting out his prescriptions despite Stevens having lost all his paperwork in the fire, and the Red Cross gave him access to money to pay for medical expenses, he said.
“I am shocked that my house is gone,” Stevens wrote in his email, “but in awe of the men and women that came to help me on that cold, snowy, nasty day.”