ORRINGTON, Maine — Empty cardboard boxes stored too close to a wood stove started the fire Saturday in Orrington that killed a father and his three young children, the state fire marshal’s office said Monday.
As state officials released the findings of their investigation, students, parents and community members were meeting at Center Drive School in Orrington, where counselors were available to aid the grieving process of a community stunned by the devastating blaze, the deadliest fire in Maine in 20 years.
The state medical examiner’s office said the victims — 30-year-old Ben Johnson III and his children, Ben, 9, Ryan, 4, and Leslie, 8 — died from smoke inhalation. The bodies of the three children were found on the floor of a second-story bedroom; the father’s body was found at the head of the stairs, also on the second floor.
The victims were likely already dead when firefighters arrived early Saturday morning, Bucksport Fire Chief Craig Bowden said Monday. The firefighters attempted to enter the home but dangerous conditions forced them to withdraw, according to Orrington Fire Chief Mike Spencer.
The only survivor, Christine Johnson, 31, is being treated for smoke inhalation at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Investigators met with her Monday morning to report their findings, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Fire investigators said the home was heated with the wood stove and a propane heater insert in the fireplace, because the furnace was not working. The family had returned from an evening of bowling late Friday night and then started the stove, in the first-floor living room, McCausland said. The boxes were within inches of the stove, he added, and were likely used to help ignite kindling when the wood stove fire was started.
Also found near the wood stove was a container of lighter fluid, which likely helped spread the fire once the cardboard boxes ignited, McCausland said early Monday afternoon.
Neighbors and firefighters reported not hearing any working smoke detectors in the house, he said.
On Monday afternoon, Jennifer Hubler brought her daughter Hatty May, who was third-grade classmates with Leslie Johnson, to see a counselor at Center Drive School. She said her daughter was saddened by the loss of her schoolmate.
“It’s hard trying to come to terms with it,” Hubler said. “It comes in waves, but the school is doing a good job for the students.”
Superintendent Allan Snell said school officials decided early Saturday morning to bring in counselors from area schools to help the community process the sudden, tragic deaths.
Counselors were available Monday, while class was out of session for the observance of Veterans Day, and a crisis team will be available to assist students when classes resume Tuesday.
“We decided we ought to open up the school today and give friends and family and the community the chance to come in and reflect,” Snell said Monday afternoon.
Snell said Leslie and Ben Johnson began attending Center Drive School about six months ago but had adjusted quickly and made friends.
“They were very well-liked students, really nice young people,” he said.
Connie Coulton, an ed tech at the school, cried as she talked about the shock of the sudden, tragic deaths. She said she brought Leslie and Ben to lunch each day.
“They were just so full of life and energy,” she said. “I can’t believe they’re gone.”
Counseling was also available for firefighters who responded to the blaze, said Spencer, Orrington’s fire chief. They are called “critical incident debriefings,” he said. Firefighters involved in fatal fires meet in an optional group meeting to speak with a counselor.
The meeting also serves to determine whether individual crew members may need additional support, he said.
Another house fire on Saturday, in Augusta, also was fueled by flammable liquid, according to a Maine Department of Public Safety news release. The homeowner, 38-year-old Michael O’Leary, was badly burned after using gasoline to help start a wood stove fire. His wife, Amanda O’Leary, suffered smoke inhalation and the couple’s dog died in the blaze.
In the wake of both fires, State Fire Marshal Joe Thomas said combustible items should be kept three feet away from any wood stove and flammable liquid should never be used to start a wood stove fire.
“The vapors are explosive and cause a fireball,” he said. “Only paper and kindling should be used to start a wood stove.”
Thomas also said families should have and practice escape plans from a house and have a central meeting spot outside to account for everyone.
“Smoke detectors, wood stove safety and having fire escape plans should be part of every Maine household to keep families safe this winter,” Thomas said.
Funerals for Ben Johnson III and his children are being arranged by Brookings-Smith Funeral Home in Bangor but had not yet been scheduled by Monday afternoon.
Johnson and his wife were familiar faces at Family Fun Bowling Center on Hildreth Street in Bangor.
“The entire bowling center is in shock. It feels like he’s been here forever,” said Andy Meucci, owner of Family Fun, which first opened in 1967.
“We were surprised he was only 30 because it seems like he’s been here so long,” added Meucci. “He started up with the Saturday morning youth league and did that for five or six years and has been in adult leagues ever since.”
Meucci said Monday the center planned to hold a memorial service and moment of silence before the start of the Monday Night Men’s League, which Johnson competed in.
Johnson was a member of an elite group as one of only three or four Family Fun bowlers ever with more than a half-dozen perfect 300 games in their careers. He bowled five 300 games in one year (2006) and had 10 total in his career.
“He’s a little bigger than life in the bowling scene,” Meucci said. “He also used to bowl Tuesday nights, but that got too expensive with having kids. He and Christine still bowled together in the Dunnett’s Friday Night Mixed Couples League, though.”
Meucci noted that “you get a ring every time you shoot a 300 and [Johnson] gave one to each of his kids.”
Johnson bowled for the five-man Bluez Cruz team in the men’s league.
“He was a great guy who really loved the game, and like I said, he was part of this place,” Meucci said. “It wouldn’t be rare to see him three or four times a week. He had half a dozen balls and all the equipment you could think of. It took him two or three trips to bring all his stuff in on league nights.”
BDN writer Andrew Neff contributed to this report. Follow Mario Moretto and Andrew Neff on Twitter at @riocarmine and @ANeffBDN.
This is so sad. The family is in my thoughts and I hope that Christine has a phenomenal support system as she’ll need one in this horrible time. I cannot fathom the pain…all we can do now is pray for her. I hope that as a community, we can reach out and offer support in every way possible to make things a little easier.
Terrible, I can think of so many times growing up we’ve left our kindling or boxes very close to the woodstove we used to heat our old farm house. My thoughts and condolences are with them mother.
I am just picturing the home I am in the process of moving out of. There must be a dozen boxes stacked beside the stove. The stove is no longer in use, since I broke both of my hands after falling with my arms loaded with wood.
I have moved because of the high cost of heat. I can imagine there are many more households moving to wood or wood supplements this winter and we may see more tragedies like this one. I pray not, but I realize that the potential is there.
It is reported that the furnace in this house was not working and I think that is a scenario that will be repeated in many homes throughout the upcoming winter. All the more reason to make sure you have smoke detectors. Some fire departments have them available for a reduced cost, have working batteries and have a CO detector. Remember CO is heavier than O2 and therefore CO detectors should be placed lower on the wall for the earliest detection of CO.
Technical point . . . Carbon monoxide when heated or warm will rise . . . but as soon as it reaches room temp it pretty much can be found at all levels of the home which makes a CO detector at any level a good thing . . . providing they are working.
One tip not mentioned is to replace the entire smoke detector every 10 years (a lot of folks do not realize they have a life expectancy) . . . CO detectors may need to be replaced every 3-7 years (depending on the make and model).
For tips on safe wood burning please contact the Bangor Fire Department, your area fire department or local woodstove shop.
Thanks for the info on Carbon monoxide. We had a water heater vent pipe rust completely a few years ago Thanksgiving and our detector located at light switch level promptly alerted us, which was great because my daughter was not feeling well. We immediately vacated the house, but I killed all of the oil fired appliances and opened all the windows before we left. My daughter was fine, fortunately, because of the early alert.
I have another question. Can the local fire departments provide tips on getting a fire started? I am a consummate city kid. My idea of camping is staying away from home at the Hyatt Regency or Ritz Carlton. Roughing it would be a Holiday Inn.
I will not be playing with a wood stove henceforth, but I am sure there are other city transplants that could benefit from some help if they wanted it.
I think you will find most standard hard wired smoke detectors are only listed for 5 years . Maybe they will last longer than that in a non smoker non woodstove house . Just saying the listing on them is not to good. That being said I would encourage people to add a few stand alone battery smokes if you already have hard wired ones. The issue i find is if one has a week battery or not working properly it tends to make them all chirp or at least make the problem hard to pin point . Many times people will take them all down because one is troublesome. People always seem to think it cost $1000s. to install hard wired interconnected smoke detectors but you average electrician should be able to add them for less than $500 for a whole house . Replace them for less than $200 . Small price to pay to be a bit safer.
One more suggestion is to place CO detectors either in bedrooms or one within 10 feet of bedroom doors.
Thanks for all of the good advice. Perhaps you can answer a question about fire extinguishers. (And if not, I will certainly stop in my town’s fire department.) Mine are several years old, yet still the gauge is in the “ready” area. Can that be true after several years? Makes me a little nervous….
poor family, so sad…
Most fire extinguishers will have the date on a tag or stamped somewhere on the cylinder. I would say if they are over 5 years old, you may want to consider having it checked out by someone to see if it needs recharging. Also, I am sure your local fire department would be happy to help you find out–bring the extinguisher to your department and someone would most likely be able to tell you for certain.
Thank you!
often fire dept will train people on the proper use of a wood stove and should be called in to do an inspection to ensure the hook up and chimney is safe.
Also in tight time more and more people are facing electric shut offs (and have used up all their resources) AND may use unsafe alternatives or use them unwisely. Be careful out there.
I have always wondered why fire departments are considered the authority for heating appliances. My furnace actually has an old sticker saying that the local fire department “approved” it.
Firefighters are trained to put out fires, not install and use stoves and furnaces.
Who better to tell you what causes fires? Join a local volunteer company and you will answer your own question after a short time.
Actually, some are good, some maybe not so good. I caused an oil leak in my basement when I primed the heater after running out of oil. This is a simple procedure and I had done so many, many, times. However, this time, the screw was not as tight as it should have been, and over several hours, 50-70 gallons escaped. The entire fire department responded (or at least it looked like it) but no one checked the screw on the heater. That was the first place the service man looked. However, knowing several members of the department on a personal level, I know where I would go if I wanted advice on smoke detectors or other fire safety equipment. Some of us read computer magazines and some read up on every new fire protection/prevention that comes out.
I posted on a previous article on this tragedy that in memory of Ben Johnson and his children, I have replaced smoke detector and CO Detector batteries in my new home and my daughter and grandchilds home.
I am asking all readers here to do the same. If you can, do so for one other family (household) as well. If these deaths can prevent one other tragedy, then at least something good will have come from this tragedy.
Excellent!! I change my batteries every year during Thanksgiving week. Last year
I bought two new Co detectors. One near the boiler & another at the main floor bedroom
door. Smoke detectors on all three floors and the cellar stairwell.
And if anyone can afford to purchase a smoke detector or CO detector for yourself and/or another household, please do so. But at least change the batteries in your own smoke detectors and/or CO detectors, and hopefully offer batteries to one other household, maybe one with children, so hopefully we can prevent another family from suffering this tragedy.
As I did raysgirl but I also said I test and change all my batteries twice a year in my smoke and carbon monoxide detectors (even detectors and batteries can be defective) for it is the only way I can sleep peacefully knowing I may get enough warning for my family and pets. One never knows if an accident is only a few seconds away. No matter the cause of this tragedy the outcome is heartbreaking as we have all made mistakes in life that could have changed life as we know it today. Again best wishing to Mrs. Johnson for her physical and emotional recovery and also to her extended family and friends.
Thank-you.
I usually do this when we turn the clocks back, but for some reason didn’t do it this year, maybe because I was in the middle of moving and busy with a new grandchild etc. No excuse.
I didn’t know this family and I live no where near Orrington so I was trying to think of some small thing I could do in memory of this young family. Realizing, I hadn’t done it, I went out and got batteries for my new home, for my daughter and for the father of my infant granddaughter. He also has a son that lives with him, so it seemed that trying to protect us all and then having done it, urging others to do the same in memory of this young family would be a small step in preventing another tragedy of this sort.
that’s a great comment. let me please add that two house fires in Maine this year were attributed to dryer vents & exhausts not being cleaned. Please remember to not only clean the front lint trap in your dryer, but to annually clean the exhaust hose as well. Hot air blowing on lint will start a fire. It takes about an hour, you need some tools, here’s a youtube video to guide you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNbhZlbSN4I&feature=related
take care all, and God Bless the Johnsons and all who love them.
My daughter just had a dryer fire at her house. They didn’t clean the workings of their gas dyer. Everybody is okay, but it could have gotten real bad quickly.
fire escape plans…. should be part of every Maine household and taught in school … fire drills practiced regularly, at home, and School, with teachers, parents and firefighters!! on how to escape a burning building of any sort.
It is done every year in the schools with fire departments!
I always replace mine at Daylight savings time. I hadn’t yet. Did so Saturday morning.
I have done the same every year too. This year, I planned on moving in November but because of a heating issue, I moved in October as the apartment was vacant anyway. I guess between moving and caring for my granddaughter while my daughter works, I never did it.
Like many people, I thought about my own family when I heard about this. I thought there was one way I could honor those lost-by being sure I offered more protection to my own family. So Sunday, I went out and bought batteries for my three smoke detectors, my daughter’s two smoke detectors and for three at my grandbaby’s Dad’s house as he has a little boy living with him. All three homes now have battery backed plug in CO monitors too.
What really makes this sad is the fact that they were probably using wood because oil is too darn expensive. There is no reason for oil to be so high. christine you and your family are in my prayers
Please don’t bring that into this, it has nothing to do with it!
Perhaps oil is so expensive because it is a finite resource that is being used up very quickly.
That may be true, but home heating oil are in the same price range as gasoline, but is far cheaper to produce and isn’t taxed. What does that tell you? Sounds like someone is inflating the prices at the expense of the homeowner.
Economies of scale might have something to do with that.
Mainers use almost 700 million gallons of gasoline a year but less than 200 million gallons of heating oil.
Maybe, but then again, Mainers can go without gas if they can’t afford it, but when it comes to heating oil, the companies are bending us over a stump! If you don’t believe that call your friendly neighborhood oil company and try to order $100 worth of oil. They will tell you 100 gal. minimum. There is no good reason for oil to be so expensive. Especially in a State that pays crap for wages. Mainers are forced to desperate measures to stay warm.
my thoughts are with the family….
Not mentioned in the article is the importance of being sure the chimney is clean and suitable for use. A blocked up chimney has improper draft and will back smoke up into the home creating a danger as well as a mess. Please have your chimneys checked if you haven’t already done so.
This woman just lost her entire family. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain she is going through right now. My thoughts to her and the extended family during this time. Makes me feel fortunate that I have never had to deal with any kind of tragedy like this, and I hope I never do. :(
Wood stoves can be a great source of warmth in the winter and wood seems fairly plentiful. However, if people are not well aware of how to use them safely, they can be deadly. What a tragic event, and a loss for their family, friends, and community.
Drove by this sad scene on my way home this afternoon. Devastating doesn’t begin to cover the situation. I hope the surviving wife/mother can somehow carry on with her life after this.
Take a note from the poster below and use this tragedy as a wake up call. Smoke Detector batteries should be changed twice a year, when the clocks change is a convenient reminder, and CO detectors are also important. We all also must be reminded of how easy it to become complacent with the simple things, such as smoke detector batteries and safe heating practices. While we cannot prevent all tragedies, we individuals are most responsible for our own safety and that of our families, don’t let this responsibility slip, more Americans die from fire annually than we lost each year in the Middle East, yet we don’t spend a fraction of the cost on our own home safety.
I am sure you are right about the smoke detector. It sounds to me though that the cardboard burned so fast and so hot that there might not have been enough time for escape anyhow. Because the mother escaped to the roof, I would guess their escape route was blocked by the fire. A tragic situation for all involved! I was a volunteer and went to a similar fire 30 years ago where 3 kids were killed. I still remember that night. My heart goes out to the Mom as well as all the fireman that were there for them!
Its time to license owning a wood stove. A person buying a wood stove has to attend, say a 3 hour safety class.
Laugh, call it ridiculous,name call me, but are you ready? to read non stop wood stove fires and Mainers dying in them with kids, ,one wood stove fire after another,after,another,after another., throughout the whole winter.
If you have to have a license to own a wood stove, you obviously lack common sense. Let’s not use this tragedy as a way to add more bureacracy to an all ready bloated state government. Wood stoves are so 1900s anyway…everyone is switching over to pellet stoves which not only provide better heat, but added safety.
There are dozens of reasons not to license wood stove ownership, but not one, will do anything to reduce the number of wood stove fires and related deaths in Maine
Nor will requiring a license. People have been using some form of a fireplace since we “discovered” fire. Sorry, if you aren’t able to figure out fire in 2012, some piece of paper issued by the government isn’t going to save you.
You cannot police and protect everyone and everything we do. There is absolutely no reason at all to require any license or permit to own a wood stove–none. Remember that thing called personal responsibility? Let’s allow some of that back into our lives instead of over regulating ourselves.
Do you want me to take a course and get a license to own a candle?
Educate, yes. License? Get real.
A license is not necessary, but I would support a safety class that would educate people in addition to giving them a discount on their home insurance premium, similar to automobile or motorcycle safety courses.
Enough! No more nanny government oversight. People make mistakes, some make poor decisions. That is life. There is no need whatsoever for a license, permit, class, or anything. Its common sense that you try to keep flammable substances away from a hot hunk of metal. This is in no disrespect to the family or what was lost, but seriously…sometimes just let things be, we don’t need oversight in every little aspect of our lives. Its a tragedy, leave it at that.
Come on bangor daily there must be some other news out there to report on…..
Also I do recall they were renting the house with option to buy. That would mean by law the owner is on the hook it is their responsibility to ensure proper working smoke detectors are in place.
i cant imagine going through something like this, my thoughts and prayers go out to the families