Firefighters battle a blaze at 184 Youngs Corner Road on Wednesday.
AUBURN — Fire investigators on Thursday combed through the rubble of a Youngs Corner Road home that was destroyed by fire a day earlier, searching for clues about the fire’s origins.
The cause and area where the blaze started couldn’t be determined because of the “significant damage” caused by the blaze, inspector and investigator David O’Connell said.
Chief Geoffrey Low said it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of the fire when it burns so hot and the damage is so extensive.
The blaze isn’t considered suspicious, he said.
The owner of the home, 89-year-old Marilyn Reilly, who had lived there since her childhood, has been interviewed once and was expected to be reinterviewed, Low said.
Other witnesses with whom investigators hadn’t been able to speak were likely to be interviewed Thursday.
Reilly escaped the large two-story structure safely with her dog.
Investigators from Auburn and the Maine State Fire Marshall’s Office were at the scene Thursday morning to continue their probe.
Because there was no close source of water with which to fight the flames, firefighters had to shuttle it by tanker trucks from departments in surrounding towns.
The first trucks on scene tried to douse the blaze within the home, but “because of the advanced stage (of the fire) and the wind, they didn’t have enough water on board and it was just too dangerous for them to do that so they ended up using their resources to kind of cool it down” and protect the area, Low said. They kept an eye out for floating embers settling on a house across the street and a nearby house behind Reilly’s.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze by Reilly’s Life Alert necklace and a 911 call, Low said.
No firefighters were injured, but some of the fire hoses they used ended up burning, Low said.
Low said fire departments from Durham, Lewiston, Mechanic Falls, New Gloucester, Oxford, Poland and Turner were critical in fighting the blaze, as well as crews from United Ambulance.
cwilliams@sunjournal.com
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