MEDWAY, Maine — The spontaneous combustion of oily cleaning rags may have ignited a two-alarm fire overnight Monday that damaged a Route 11 restaurant’s basement, officials said Tuesday.
The Bridge at 2074 Medway Road likely will be closed and under repair for a few weeks. Investigators believe the fire began in a cardboard box of rags that workers used to clean the restaurant’s kitchen hood systems, Medway Fire Chief Jon Buckingham said.
“Some cleaning solvents and cleaning rags will spontaneously combust. We just have to see what we have and go through the testing process,” Sgt. Scott Richardson of the state fire marshal’s office said Tuesday.
Investigators hope to determine the fire’s cause in a week or two.
A passerby who heard the restaurant’s fire alarm and called 911 at about 11:45 p.m. on Monday saved the building from far greater damage, Buckingham said.
“If nobody was around,” Buckingham said, “it could have burned well into the night and gotten out of the basement, and then we would have had a big job on our hands.”
The first firefighters, from Medway, arrived at 11:51 p.m. About 30 firefighters from East Millinocket, Mattawamkeag, Medway and Millinocket doused the flames and helped clear heavy smoke from the first and second floors, Buckingham said.
The restaurant’s owner could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.