Home under repair damaged by fire

BANGOR – Fire damaged a section of an unoccupied home under renovation Tuesday afternoon. Firefighters sought to extinguish flames that spread through several floors of the Holland Street home.

Firefighters had the situation under control at about 4:15 p.m. – an hour and 20 minutes after they arrived and found fire and heavy smoke coming from the rear section of the home, located on the dead end street off Ohio Street.

Bangor Assistant Fire Chief Rick Cheverie said it was too early to say what caused the fire, but said that the home’s owner, David Brown of Larkin Street, had been in the house earlier in the morning working on renovations. Cheverie said his investigation into the fire would begin this morning and that he didn’t consider the fire to be suspicious.

The fire damaged three of the four apartment units in the home, although there was smoke damage throughout the building.

Because of the design of the home – a balloon frame in which each stud runs from the ground level to the ceiling of the top floor – the fire spread essentially unimpeded from the first floor to the home’s attic, although the fire did not breach the roof, Cheverie said.

Cheverie said a 4-inch space around the chimney may also have led to flames spreading quickly and that the home contained a cellulose-based insulation that allowed the fire to smolder in one area and spread, flaming up unexpectedly elsewhere in the insulation.

Firefighters were slowed briefly – about a minute – when burning debris fell onto a water hose and burned through it, requiring firefighters to shut down water to that hose and bring in another line to replace it, Cheverie said.