GARDINER, Maine — One of the first things Shaina Ellis saw Thursday afternoon that hinted imminent tragedy was a screaming woman fleeing her apartment building. At that point, there were only wisps of smoke rising toward the sky.
Ellis, who owns the Serendipity Hair Salon across Water Street from the fire that leveled four downtown buildings, was still cutting hair.
“There were people running out of the building and screaming,” Ellis said. “We kept saying, ‘Why can’t they stop that fire?’”
A day later, city leaders, public safety officials and residents struggled to cope with the extent of the damage to four buildings and expressed fears about the fate of two downtown residents who have not been seen since the fire sparked. Investigators are still trying to locate two men, Kerry Davis and Sean Smith, who lived in the building.
State Fire Marshal Joe Thomas later added three people to the list of those still unaccounted for: Daren Jones, Robert Gagnon and Lisa Moore. Thomas said there have been sightings of those three but investigators still needed to contact them.
Anyone who knows their whereabouts is urged to call 624-7076.
Investigators at one point Friday afternoon thought they had found human remains but determined the remains were an artificial human skeleton.
“It turned out not to be human,” Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said about 4:30 p.m. Friday. “At this hour, no victims have been found in the rubble.”
About 100 firefighters from a dozen surrounding communities stopped the fire, but not before it gutted 235 Water St., an attractive brick building that dates back more than a century, and heavily damaged three adjacent buildings, all of which were attached.
Firefighters doused the buildings from the front and back for seven hours Thursday before the last embers were quenched.
Despite the carnage across the street, Ellis and an employee, Judy MacDonald of Gardiner, kept cutting hair.
“We turned the chairs toward the window,” Ellis said. “We were applying color and watching them put the fire out.”
Construction equipment was assembling behind the Water Street block early Friday afternoon, building an earthen berm on which to perch demolition equipment and to pad the fall of charred bricks and mortar that had to be pulled down before they collapsed on their own.
Pete Robinson of Augusta, a former firefighter, sometime land developer and mason, surveyed the building late Friday morning, admiring the granite lintels and keystones at the summit of bricked arches over windows that offered peeks of the burned ruins inside.
“No one builds a building like that anymore,” said Robinson, who once rehabilitated a burned-out brick building in Augusta by cutting off the top story; building a new, lower roof; and repairing the fire damage inside. “I’m considering making an offer on it, but it might be too far gone.”
Thomas told reporters at a midday news conference Friday that his office carefully would deconstruct the building in order to try to save as much of the structure as possible while watching for the remains of potential fire victims.
“As we stabilize the building and begin to take debris out of that building, we’re doing it in a manner where we may be able to account for individuals should they be in that building,” Thomas said.
Three firefighters and a civilian suffered minor injuries and were treated and released from local hospitals.
Ryan Gagne, the manager of the Touch of Grey tattoo studio, said he and owner Chris Flynn opened the business less than a week ago. Gagne said most of the tattoo equipment was ruined, though he was retrieving several wet and soot-covered pieces Friday afternoon.
Flynn said he was working on a tattoo when the fire struck.
“I have half of Marilyn Monroe out there somewhere,” he said. “We’re coming back, harder and stronger and faster.”
Flynn said he already was following a lead about another space to rent.
Mayor Thom Harnett said Gardiner already is on the rebound from the devastating downtown disaster and that offers of help have been flooding in from near and far.
“Going through a fire like this is a traumatic event, not just for the people immediately victimized but also for an entire community, as we see a piece of our history go up on fire and smoke,” Harnett said. “Gardiner will come back from this. We will rebound. We will bounce back stronger than ever.”
Cash donations in support of the fire victims can be mailed to the Kennebec Valley United Way (with “Gardiner fire” in the memo), 121 Commercial St., Augusta, ME 04330, or through the website gofundme.com/downtownfire.
Bangor Daily News writer Dawn Gagnon contributed to this report.
