BANGOR, Maine — Cigarette butts improperly discarded outside a Fourth Street apartment building were cited as the apparent cause of a fire Monday afternoon that forced nearly a dozen tenants who were home at the time to evacuate temporarily.
About a dozen tenants were home at the time and all of them got out safely, Assistant Chief Scott Bostock of the Bangor Fire Department said at the scene. He said no one was injured in connection with the fire, which began shortly before 4 p.m. at 23-25 Fourth St.
Because of Monday afternoon’s wind and near freezing temperatures, city firefighters and emergency medical personnel handed out blankets to tenants who had to leave the building with just the clothes on their backs, many of them without shoes or coats on.
Meanwhile, city police officers who came to the scene offered to let tenants warm up in their police vehicles.
Dreama Dandy was among the people forced to vacate the building.
“We’ve got four cats up there,” she said while climbing into a running Bangor Police Department SUV for warmth. “We couldn’t get them out. They told us we have to leave.”
Clinton Edwards, who lives with Dandy, also was worried about the cats.
“I don’t care if we lose everything else — I just don’t want to lose the cats,” he said, adding that he and Dandy weren’t able to take the cats outside with them because they had lent their cat carriers to a friend.
Bangor Assistant Fire Chief Tom Higgins later said all five of the cats that lived in the building survived.
Fire department personnel looked the cats over and provided oxygen to some of them, but for the most part, the felines perked right up once they got out into the fresh air, Higgins said. All were reunited with their owners.
The fire damaged a wall on the back side of the building, where Bostock said firefighters found a pile of cigarette butts about 2 feet in diameter.
Bostock said the butts weren’t scattered throughout the yard but rather appear to have been dumped in a pile.
Higgins said the fire was reported by a tenant who smelled smoke and called for help. Fire crews “did a great job stopping it.”
They arrived quickly and hit the burning parts of the building with three lines, containing the fire to a back wall before it made its way to other parts of the building, which public records indicate was built in the 1880s.
Higgins said the tenants of two of the building’s eight apartments were displaced because of the fire but that everyone else was allowed to return to their homes.
The Pine Tree Chapter of the American Red Cross is assisting the displaced tenants, he said.
The building is owned by Kenneth Nelson. It wasn’t immediately clear whether it was insured.
Glad to read everyone got out safely. The pic of the outside steps looks like a fire trap. This story could’ve ended tragically.
Yes lucky this was not at 2am, may have been a different story line
cigarettes should be outlawed they stink, they cause fires, and are addictive yes i am a reformed smoker with a big mouth sorry
Right along with drinking right?
“cigarettes should be outlawed”
-You don’t mind if I use the force of government to outlaw behaviors or activities you engage in that I might find offensive do you?
my activities do not smell or cause other people cancer although i am addiicted to eating and breathing you may find that offensive i do not
In a message dated 3/27/2012 4:33:40 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, writes:
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afreeradical wrote, in response to bdymaniam:
“cigarettes should be outlawed”
-You don’t mind if I use the force of government to outlaw behaviors or activities you engage in that I might find offensive do you?
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Not the sharpest tool are you Rex?
And my neighbor wonders why I have a problem when he chucks his still lit butts on the lawn. Hopefully this summer won’t be too dry…hmmm, now about getting that renters insurance.
And in other news ” Survivors of Cigarette-butt-House Fire Live Long Enough to Die of Smoking Related Cancer”.
Must be fun trying to give a cat oxygen. My guess was blow-by. Still the sound must have spooked them a little. I am still chuckling over this one.
kudos to the Bangor Firefighters for putting this one out … an 1880’s built structure is a tinderbox its a miracle they stopped it in that wind.
Why is it any more a tinderbox than a 1980’s built house?
I guess that could be debated IF you are looking for an argument the point was and still is about the great job Bangor Firefighters did putting out this fire on a particularly windy day.
There are plenty of reasons why, but the biggest is the way they are constructed. Most 1800’s home builders used a method called “balloon construction”. There are no top plates between stories, and fires can spread quickly from floor to floor inside the walls.
Bangor needs to adopt the law Portland recently put in place allowing a $100 fine for discarding cigarette butts. I see many people everyday just dropping their still burning butts into mulch beds, dry grass, pavement where the wind blows them into hazardous areas or possible ignition.
I would prefer one of those “citizen arrest” scenerios, only it would be tickets, and everytime you see someone flick one of those live butts anywhere, you as a concerned citizen could site them a ticket for about $100 for “littering”. I would actually like to pick it up and throw it in the backseat of the car that just tossed it out. Every spring we are cleaning up hundreds of butts from the yard – YUCK. It’s trash, no matter how you want to spin it – take care of it just like you would any other trash – oh yeah, they are probably throwing out the other trash as well in my yard.