ETNA, Maine — When the call for help went out to fight a fire at the corner of Route 143 and Route 2, the boss of the homeowner’s daughter was notified and her other daughter went directly to the home.
Firefighters from 19 communities, including Etna, battled the blaze.
“I wanted to be here for my mom,” Angela Richardson said of her mother, Linda Batchelder.
Linda and Brian Batchelder arrived at the burning home just after 3 p.m., and Linda Batchelder broke into tears as she watched firefighters work on the house she has owned for a decade.
The fire at 16 Dixmont Road was reported at 12:31 p.m., and firefighters from Etna, Dixmont, Glenburn, Hampden, Levant, Hermon, Stetson, Newport and Corinth went to battle the blaze. Crews from Carmel, Plymouth, Detroit, Newburgh, Pittsfield, Corinna, Dexter, Hudson, Kenduskeag and Troy also assisted at the fire, Etna Fire Chief Shawn Ryder said.
Someone driving by reported smoke, and then there was a second call reporting heavy smoke, incident commander Carmel Fire Chief Ryan Simpson said.
“When we first got here, the back of the barn was fully engulfed [in fire],” Simpson said at about 3:30 p.m.
Traffic on Route 143 heading east toward Interstate 95 was blocked for hours but reopened just before 5 p.m.
Challenges for firefighters involved manpower, at first, and the multiple layers of construction, which comes from building renovations that add areas for the fire to hide, the fire chief said.
“There were three of us when we first fought the fire,” Simpson said of initial manpower that grew by the end.
“It’s roof over roof,” Simpson said of the construction challenge. “We had to chase the fire for a little bit.”
“It was a nasty fire,” a fire official from Newburgh said.
The home is a two-story house in the front connected with a central building and then a two-story barn in the back with an apartment on the second floor that once was “the old carriage house,” Richardson said.
Fire was found throughout the upper portions of the entire building, Simpson said. The fire in the center building was extinguished first, then the front portion of the house was attacked, and firefighters battled the back portion of the fire last, using chain saws to cut holes in the roof in order to apply water.
“There is quite a bit of damage,” Simpson said. He said the back of it was destroyed by the fire.
No injuries have been reported, but the family did lose a cat and possibly a parrot.
The state fire marshal’s office has been called to investigate, Simpson said.
Ryder said the fire investigator will return to the home on Tuesday morning.