Two firefighters escape from Eddington blaze

EDDINGTON — An early morning fire at an apartment complex, which shortly trapped two firefighters inside the residence, was put out within an hour Monday morning.

Damage was contained to only one of the Bend Apartments. The tenants, Woodrow and Grace Decker were not home at the time. The fire was contained to an upstairs bedroom, but flared strong enough and long enough to trap two firefighters whose hose had ruptured.

Brewer firefighter Captain Steve Carpenter and Eddington volunteer firefighter Tim Campbell retreated to a rear bedroom, shut the door, and climbed out a small window to a ground ladder which had been erected to rescue them.

“Our exit was blocked,” Carpenter said. “We didn’t have any other way to go. The fire flashed and our hose had blown so I knew we had to get out the safest way possible. We shut the door to give us a little more time and ordered a ground ladder to be put up ASAP.

“The timing went well for us,” he said. “It could have gone either way.”

A passerby spotted the fire shortly before 8 a.m. He then pounded on the door of Geraldine Marino, who, along with her 91-year-old mother, were the only two tenants in the building at the time. Both escaped unharmed.

Marino said the Deckers, who also own a home in Milo, had not been home for most of the summer. They had stopped by on Thursday to pick up the mail, she said.

Firefighters were aided by a fire hydrant located directly across the street.

“That didn’t hurt a bit,” Grover said.

A spokeswoman for Penobscot Properties Inc., which owns the two-building apartment complex, said the damage was contained to mostly the one bedroom. It didn’t interfere with the living arrangements of any other tenants.