BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY NICK SAMBIDES JR. Gary P. Simard, a certified fire investigator for Fire & Explosion Investigators, Inc. of Norway, Maine searches on Monday, November 9, 2009 for clues, as to what started the blaze that destroyed the Lincoln New Print Services building at 78 West Broadway last week. Buy Photo

LINCOLN, Maine — There’s a 75 percent chance that the Lincoln News’ next issue will hit newsstands on time Thursday, Editor and Publisher Kevin Tenggren said Monday.

Days after a fire, the newspaper’s staff has moved into the former Lincoln Historical Society offices at 70 W. Broadway, installed Apple computers, telephone lines, fax machines and desks and began assembling the edition, Tenggren said.

Only a lack of Internet access for all employees posed difficulties, he said.

“It just makes it more difficult for us to download things off the Web that we need to print,” Tenggren said.

Investigators, meanwhile, continued to go through remains of the Lincoln News Print Services building at 78 W. Broadway in search of clues as to what started the fire that destroyed the building. No one was inside the 1½-story building, and no one was injured fighting the fire Thursday night.

With a circulation of about 6,300 through the Katahdin and Lincoln Lakes regions, the newspaper had just put out its latest edition Wednesday night for mail deliveries Thursday.

The fire appeared to start in the rear of the building, near the newspaper’s presses, and swept rapidly forward to the building’s roof peak and front office before firefighters from four towns could knock it down. The last people to leave the building, at about 5:25 p.m., told investigators that they saw nothing suspicious.

Gary P. Simard, a certified fire investigator for Fire & Explosion Investigations Inc. of Norway, said investigators do not believe that the fire is suspicious in nature, but won’t know for some time. The heavy debris created by the fire makes difficult the search for evidence, and the pinpointing of an exact location where the fire began, said Simard, who was hired by the Lincoln News’ insurer.

State budget cutbacks also hampered the investigation and the razing of the building, which must occur for safety reasons, said Sgt. Tim York of the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office.

Investigators had to wait until Monday to resume their investigation, he said. The building will not be razed until investigators have done all they can to determine a cause.