BRIDGEWATER – Tragedy struck this Aroostook County town of 600 people early Wednesday morning when a fire caused by ashes from a grill swept through a Boundary Line Road house, killing a young brother and sister.

Caleb Carter, 6, and his sister, Brooke, 5, died of smoke inhalation as they slept in a second-floor bedroom located in an ell.

Their parents, Hilton and Rachel Carter, escaped from the 21/2-story house along with a third child, Jacob, who is 3 or 4 years old.

The fire began on a deck that ran between the house and an unattached garage, according to Sgt. Stuart Jacobs of the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Ashes from a charcoal grill that had been used Tuesday night apparently fell through ventilation holes and eventually ignited the deck.

The house had two smoke detectors but neither one had a battery, Jacobs said.

The Aroostook County Sheriff’s Department received the first call reporting the fire at 1:45 a.m. Fire departments from Mars Hill and Monticello provided mutual aid. Bridgewater is located 21 miles north of Houlton.

The Carters had been remodeling the house, which they had moved into about a year ago. Bridgewater fire Chief John Barker said his department has been to the property before to put out debris fires because Carter did not have a permit for them.

When his pager went off and the location was given, Barker thought it was for another debris fire, he said from his home Wednesday.

As he was driving to the fire station about a quarter-mile away, however, “I could look across and see the house on fire,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is bad.’

“The building was pretty well involved when we arrived,” he said, noting that both the garage and the back of the house were engulfed in flames. “Both of those were totally involved.”

Barker said that while he had not had a chance to interview the Carters, it was his understanding they were awakened by the crackling sound of flames. He also said Hilton Carter apparently attempted to get to the two children but wasn’t able to do so because of the flames.

Brad Drost, 15, lives next door to the Carters. He initially was not aware of the fire but recalled that Rachel Carter came to their house to get help.

“She started banging on the door,” Drost said. “She was out there screaming and hollering. She was hysterical.”

He said his grandmother, Linda Delong, answered the door and was one of those who called to report the fire.

Drost said the flames “were up on the roof [of the ell]. They were quite tall.”

The ell was gutted and the garage was leveled. Extensive heat and smoke gutted the main house, Barker said.

Brooke Carter was in pre-kindergartner at the Bridgewater Grammar School, while Caleb Carter was in first grade.

School has been out for summer vacation for a week, but Principal Ellen Schneider was there Wednesday and remembered the children.

“Caleb was just full of energy,” she said. “He had a wonderful personality. He always had a hug for you and never forgot to say please and thank you.”

She described Brooke as shy, but at the same time, she always liked to be a helper.

“You could always count on her to do things,” Schneider said, adding that on the last day of school when children in the pre-kindergarten class were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, Brooke said she wanted to be a movie star.

She said other teachers recalled to her that Caleb “endeared himself to the staff and the other children at the school,” while Brooke “was a friend of all the students, someone who befriended everyone.”

Caleb Carter was a twin, but his twin brother, Austin, died five weeks after birth at a Portland hospital, according to an August 1994 obituary in the Bangor Daily News.

Barker has been on the Bridgewater Fire Department for 30 years, including the last 19 as its chief. He said he checked department records going back to 1950 – the first year they were kept – and the Carter children were the third and fourth people to be killed in a fire in the town in the last 40 years. Their deaths also were the first multiple deaths.

“It’s the worst tragedy we’ve ever had,” the fire chief said.

Wednesday’s fire was frustrating, Barker said, because firefighters knew there were children inside the burning house but there was little they could do until the flames were abated.

The tragedy, however, “didn’t stop them,” he said of the firefighters, pausing as his eyes filled with tears. “They were able to keep going.”

He said that while firefighters never ran out of water, there was one brief three- or four-minute period when they had to wait for water while portable tanks were being filled by tankers.

“It was frustrating while they set up a dump tank and filled it,” he said, pausing again and looking away.