SOUTH BRISTOL, Maine — No one was home when a fire started that consumed much of a waterfront cottage on Rutherford Island in South Bristol on Saturday, May 14.
A neighbor reported the fire at 163 Miles Road in the Christmas Cove area, according to Bristol 1st Assistant Fire Chief Jared Pendleton, but it was already too late for the home.
The Lincoln County Communications Center dispatched the South Bristol Fire Department at 10:33 a.m. and the Bristol, Damariscotta, and Newcastle departments a minute later.
“It was visible from McDonald’s (in Damariscotta) when we got paged out and it was visible from New Harbor, so it was well out through the roof,” Pendleton said.
Firefighters focused on protecting nearby structures, like a two-car garage on the property and a home next door. “It was basically a defensive attack,” Pendleton said.
A South Bristol firefighter suffering from heat exhaustion was treated at the scene by the South Bristol First Responders and taken to LincolnHealth’s Miles Campus in Damariscotta by the Central Lincoln County Ambulance Service.
The firefighters had to deal with challenges specific to the home, the neighborhood, and the weather.
“This being a log home, there’s really no fire stops in it,” Pendleton said. “There’s a huge fuel load, where it’s all log and not sheetrocked.
“You don’t have much of a chance. If it’s early, early notification, there’s somebody in the house, then you have a chance with these, but other than that, when a neighbor sees it or somebody sees it from across the water, it’s all over with before you even get a call.”
Miles Road, a private dirt road of mostly seasonal homes, presented another challenge.
“It’s a long, narrow, almost-a-mile-long road, dead-end, so access is awful,” Pendleton said. Bristol firefighters ran several hundred feet of hose from the scene to a water source down the road.
Like a fire that destroyed an old farmhouse in Sheepscot on Thursday, May 12, wind contributed to the South Bristol fire, according to Pendleton.
The Rutherford Island property has a sweeping view of John’s Bay. The property was for sale for $550,000, according to a listing on realtor.com, and a sale was pending.
According to the listing, the cottage was built in 1965. It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and sits on 1 acre of land with 250 feet of frontage on John’s Bay.
The home and the garage, which has living quarters on the second floor, were “in need of renovation,” according to the listing.
The Bremen, Bristol, Damariscotta, Newcastle, and South Bristol fire departments responded to the scene. The Nobleboro and Waldoboro fire departments provided station coverage for Damariscotta and Bremen, respectively.
The Central Lincoln County Ambulance Service, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, and the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office also responded to the scene.
Pendleton did not expect the fire marshal’s office to be able to determine the cause of the fire due to the extent of the damage.
South Bristol firefighters will likely remain at the scene for several hours to monitor and extinguish hot spots in the wreckage, according to Pendleton.