LEWISTON – In April 1997, fire swept through an apartment house on Maple Street, forcing more than a dozen to flee and killing a man and two children inside. The family, trapped on the top floor at 56 Maple St., had little chance of getting out. The building had few working smoke detectors. Stairways and exits were blocked.
A 1-year-old girl, a 3-year-old boy and a 26-year-old man died in the fire. Two men in charge of the building equipment were charged with manslaughter, though the charges were later dropped.
In January 1993, a 2-year-old boy died in a fire on Court Street in Auburn after playing with a lighter inside his bedroom. Fire investigators said Joshua Severance died of smoke inhalation from the blaze he set with a cigarette lighter. The boy’s mother, 23-year-old Patricia Severance, was badly burned while trying to rescue her son from the flames.
The death of Joshua Severance served as a reminder to parents to keep lighters and other dangerous equipment away from children. Likewise, the Maple Street fire in 1997 raised awareness about fire-safety equipment in Lewiston and prompted a fresh look at the conditions of apartment houses within the city.
Victims of the early morning fire that claimed the life of a 4-year-old boy on Blake Street Monday reported that they were alerted to the blaze by smoke detectors. The owner of the building said he went through the apartment house with city code enforcement officers just two weeks ago to check on safety equipment.
Fire officials would like to believe that lessons learned from the deadly blaze in 1997 might have served as a reminder to local landlords that they are responsible for safety inside their buildings.
“Lewiston did do a lot more enforcement after the 1997 fire,” said State Fire Marshal’s Office Investigator Dan Roy Jr. “They were doing a lot to begin with. They just stepped it up even more.”
Roy said the building that burned Monday had hardwired smoke detectors and self-closing doors, which slam closed on their own, preventing flames from spreading quickly from one section of a building to the next. They are required by law in apartment houses.
Still, even updated equipment and proper exits are no guarantees that all occupants of a burning building will get out safely.
In October 2001, 80-year-old Helen Caron died in her second-floor apartment after flames engulfed the apartment building at 80 Ash St.
In that late-night blaze, tenants reported that smoke alarms sounded inside the building. But even before the alarms began to shriek, tenants were fleeing their apartments because they had heard an explosion and then saw the flames.
The fire that killed Caron was set, fire investigators said a short time after the blaze. There were suspects in the arson but no arrests were ever made.
Caron’s daughter said the woman likely realized the building was burning too late to escape. Caron was almost completely deaf. She probably did not hear the commotion as other tenants fled and some pounded on her door.
On Christmas Eve 2004, a St. Croix Street man died in his home after what fire investigators described as a smoking mishap in a bathroom. Fire officials said 65-year-old Robert Leger was on oxygen when he lit up a cigarette, causing a small explosion and fire.
Auburn Fire Prevention Officer Lt. Gary Simard said most firefighters are aware of one grim statistic: most people who perish in fires die five to eight minutes after the fire starts. That leaves little time for rescue, no matter how fast crews get to the scene.
Tammy Hotham, mother of the two children, later filed a wrongful death suit against building owner Norm Rousseau. Hotham originally sued for $5 million but later settled with Rousseau’s company, Clearwater Investments, for an undisclosed amount.
The building manager, Jeffrey Higgins, was later cleared of the charge against him.
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