CAMDEN — Fire engines from Camden and Rockport raced to  Lyman Morse at Wayfarer Tuesday night, July 12, after sailors heading back to their boat reported smoke in the boatyard’s laundry room.

When firefighters arrived at the Camden Harbor facility, smoke was filtering through the middle building of the large boatyard, originating in a laundry room dryer.

Fire Chief Chris Farley attributed the fire to oily restaurant rags left in the dryer.

Sailors Beth Miller and Holm Albrecht, of Seattle, had tied up their chartered Tartan 37 at the Lyman Morse dock earlier in the evening, and then had walked across the harbor for dinner at Long Grain.

When they returned, just past 9:30 p.m. — and after getting ice cream at Camden Cone — they walked back along the Lyman Morse wharf to their boat.

“Something smelled awful,” said Miller, and when then approached closer to the building, they spotted the smoke, and called 911.

Farley and Camden firefighters pulled the burning rags from the dryer and hauled them in trash cans outside on the dock, where they sprayed them down with water.