APPLETON -- The state fire marshal's office has classified last week's house fire in Appleton as accidental.

According to Sgt Ken Grimes of the fire marshal's office, the fire was due to a failure in the electrical system.

Despite that day's weather and the state of the remains, the investigator from the Augusta office, who was not Grimes, conducted a normal investigation of the residential home.

APPLETON – “We were very fortunate that it was raining,” Hope Fire Chief Clarence Keller said from the site of an early morning structure fire in Appleton, Wednesday, Oct. 25. Had the fire in a vacant building at 220 Camden Road occurred a day earlier, the houses next door and across the street may have caught fire as well.

At 5:37 a.m. Knox County dispatch toned out the Appleton Fire Department, along with all mutual aid units to the house on Route 105 that was once a general store in the horse and buggy era.

“That’s the joy of the automatic mutual aid. We’ve got a pretty good system going,” Keller said. “We get what we need when we need it.”

Crews from Hope, Appleton, Union, Searsmont, Washington, and Lincolnville worked through intermittent torrential rains and heavy winds to subdue the flames.

“We had heavy fire on the second floor,” Keller said of what he saw upon arrival. “It was coming through the roof at that point.”

Due to lack of precipitation in the area prior to the fire, firefighters had to find multiple sources to pump water. One of those sources was the river close to the house, though the river’s level was quite low as well.

Because of the rain, the structure’s wood was moist, which led to fewer sparks flying. The rain also saturated the pile of brush leaning against the house next door.

Also working in the responder’s favor was the age of the structure. The structure stood for a longer period than a newer home would have in similar conditions.

According to one responder, an inflamed couch in an old home would take 30 minutes to engulf the rest of the home in flames. The same couch in a newer home, with cheaper building materials, would take three minutes. 

In this case, the cause of the fire is being investigated by the State Fire Marshal’s office, according to Keller.

“We have no suspicions,” he said.

The person who initially reported the fire told dispatch that the fire started on the second floor near an electrical source.

According to a bystander who lived nearby, and whose grandmother once lived in the burned house, the structure had been deteriorating for a long time.

The fire was officially reported extinguished at 10:10 a.m. Final personnel on scene returned to base at 10:35.

No injuries were reported.

Sarah Thompson can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com