Firefighters in Lewiston, Auburn and Norway battled flames at three houses over the New Year’s holiday.
While structures were damaged, there were no known injuries.
A home at 360 Grove St. in Lewiston caught fire just after 7:30 p.m. Monday.
The one-and-a-half-story home appeared to have flames coming from the roof, just over the garage.
Lewiston and Auburn firefighters responded to the blaze, but were not able to provide information on the extent of the damage.
In Auburn, a family spent New Year’s Eve cleaning up the side of their single-story home after a grease fire.
“It happened in the blink of an eye,” Karen White, the home renter, said.
White lives in the home on South Witham Road with her fiance, her child and two pets. All made it out safely.
“One second to take care of my 19-month-old, and it was done,” she said.
White said she took the flaming pan outside and chucked it into a garbage can, which she said was covered with snow.
“Not even thinking that if it hit all that trash the grease would start a fire,” she said.
Fire officials said the burning garbage quickly spread the fire, scorching the side of the house and melting the siding.
White says she is happy the family is OK, but says this year has not been easy.
“It’s only (her fiance) right now doing what he can to support our whole family, because disability takes a while in the state of Maine,” she said.
White was diagnosed with a rare heart condition after the birth of her baby in 2016, and was given six months to live.
“I basically became a 27-year-old woman trapped in an 80-year-old body,” she said.
Her next surgery is in less than a week, and she said the family needs all the help they can get.
“It’s a new year tomorrow, so maybe today, the 31st, we can put our whole year behind us, because it’s been so terrible for us,” she said. “I’m just hoping next year is something we can be happy for, and good things will come.”
A GoFundMe is set up to help the family: www.gofundme.com/kpsmp-please-help-my-small-family.
In Norway, a man and his dog escaped a mobile home fire on Yagger Road on Monday.
Chief Dennis Yates said Dan Walo was using a heat gun to thaw an oil line going from the outside tank to the mobile home when a shed over the tank caught fire and spread to the home.
“He tried to do it as safe as he could, but obviously something malfunctioned and it caught the little shed on fire,” Yates said.
The fire left the mobile home uninhabitable, and it is probably destroyed, Yates said.
The call for help came in about 3:45 a.m. A police officer and a firefighter who lived down the road responded to find the oil tank and the shed on fire, the chief said.
Dozens of firefighters from nine towns were called to the scene, but Norway’s two trucks were all that were necessary to extinguish the blaze, Yates said.
“They did a good job knocking it down pretty fast,” he said.
Walo is staying with his parents in Otisfield, Yates said.
Flames envelop a mobile home on Yagger Road in Norway early Monday, after the owner tried to thaw a heating oil line with a heat gun. Fire Chief Dennis Yates said homeowner Dan Walo and his dog escaped unharmed. (Chuck Blaquiere photo)
Ice coats the mobile home of Dan Walo on Yagger Road in Norway early Monday morning. Fire Chief Dennis Yates said Walo was trying to thaw an outside oil line when the shed roof over the oil tank caught fire. Walo and his dog escaped unharmed. (Chuck Blaquiere photo)
Lewiston firefighters vent the roof of a single-family home at 360 Grove Street in Lewiston Monday night. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)
Smoke pours from Dan Walo’s mobile home on Yagger Road in Norway early Monday. Walo was thawing an outside heating oil line when the shed over the oil tank caught fire, Fire Chief Dennis Yates said. (Chuck Blaquiere photo)
Dan Walo and his dog escaped their home on Yagger Road in Norway early Monday morning after it caught fire. Fire Chief Dennis Yates said the home is uninhabitable and will probably be declared a total loss. (WGME photo)
The end of a single-story home on South Witham Road in Auburn burned New Year’s Eve when hot grease was poured into a snow-covered trash can outside, renter Karen White, 27, said. White, her fiance, her baby and their two pets escaped without injury. (WGME photo)
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