CAMDEN — Frank Carr was in the bank Saturday morning, depositing a check, when his friend Bob Oxton called him. ‘Do you know it’s your home on fire?’ alerted Oxton. Carr had been in Rockport helping the Camden-Rockport Historical Society prepare for a bean hole supper tonight when all the fire trucks went by. They all knew, with the number of engines heading toward Camden, that this was a major fire.

Carr rushed to his house on Shermans Point Road to find it consumed by smoke and flames, with firefighters from Camden, Lincolnville and Rockport battling the blaze. Firefighters from Union and Hope covered the Camden fire station while Camden firefighters were at the scene. 

As thick rolls of smoke shot into the sky, firefighters tackled the fire on various fronts, from the roof to the back walls, and to the front windows and door. The fire was hot enough to melt the aluminum siding off the back of the home.

The fire was well under way just before 10 a.m. when Knox County Regional Communications Center received the 911 call. Fire engines from Camden and surrounding towns of Rockport, Lincolnville, Hope and Union poured toward Route 1. Shermans Point Road is north of the Camden’s downtown, off of Route 1, toward the ocean.

Carr had left his house earlier in the morning around 8 a.m. to help out at the Camden-Rockport Historical Society. He quickly drove home after he got the call, and stood at the edge of the fire scene, knowing that his belongings were being destroyed. Carr, a former Marine, and son of a former Camden assistant fire chief, is no stranger to emergencies.

He was grateful that Camden Fire Chief Chris Farley managed to pull some family photo albums from inside the door before the fire got too destructive. Carr lives alone and no animals were in the home.

The cause of the fire is undetermined, said Farley, later in the afternoon. The fire appears to have started in the kitchen, he said.

“We walked through with Frank, and there was nothing really to salvage,” he said.

Firefighters took turns going into the burning and smoke-filled building, attacking flames from the inside, behind their masks and air packs. They maintained contact with their chiefs via radio, and emerged periodically to change their tanks and take a water break. 

Paramedics from North East Mobile Health Services stood by to help, if the firefighters were affected by the smoke and heat. 

Camden firefighters Bob French, Jr. and Earle Holt climbed onto the roof to cut two holes to allow smoke and toxic fumes to escape. Firefighters also used a thermal imaging camera to take inside and locate hot spots. They also worked to keep the fire away from the oil and propane tanks in the back of the house. The propane tank had been turned off.

The house, said Carr, had formerly been home to his parents, Hazel and Richard Carr. They had lived there from the 1960s, until Hazel died just a few years ago. The house is two double-wide trailers, plus an addition, put together and sealed by the siding and a roof. It sits on a slab, and around it, Hazel had planted her shrubs and rock gardens. All of that had been saved, despite the home’s destruction.

Carr had moved into his parents’ former home last winter, and said he will probably rebuild on the site. He had been working on his mother’s garden, expanding it, and building new stone walls with the rocks she had hauled up from the shore to build her flower garden.

Carr’s cedar stool, which he had built in Mr. Frye’s shop class in 1957, was unharmed in the yard, as were the trees, hosta and perennials that his mother had planted around the side of the house.

Carr said several neighbors had offered him a place to stay as he recovers from this morning’s catastrophe.

Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657.