An upper-level control room for the dry kiln at Robbins Lumber in Searsmont burned on Saturday, but the blaze was kept from spreading to nearby storage sheds. The red exterior of the control room is visible above the fire truck. The kiln is the metal-clad building underneath it. Credit: Ethan Andrews / BDN

Firefighters on Saturday afternoon extinguished a blaze at the Robbins Lumber sawmill and lumber yard in Searsmont.

The fire started in, and was contained to, a control room for the company’s dry kiln, which is used to dry lumber produced at the sawmill on the property.

Water from the firefighting effort covers the pavement around the dry kiln at Robbins Lumber in Searsmont after the control room (the red structure visible at the top of the photo) caught fire on Saturday. Credit: Ethan Andrews / BDN

“We don’t know what happened,” Catherine Robbins-Halsted, a co-owner of the family owned business said. “Our boiler operators spotted that there was a fire and they notified us.”

Robbins-Halsted said no one was in the upper-level control room at the time, and no one was injured in the fire, which did not spread to nearby lumber storage sheds.

“The fire department did an excellent response and took care of it,” she said.

Ethan Andrews is the night editor. He was formerly the managing editor at The Free Press and worked as a reporter for The Republican Journal and Pen Bay Pilot.

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