GARDINER – Roaring flames from a fire that struck a church building Tuesday night forced the evacuation of a next-door nursing home, putting out nearly four dozen residents.

There were no injuries, according to a fire department official and the nursing home administrator.

Forty-six residents of Robinson’s Health Care Facility were moved across Brunswick Avenue to the Laura E. Richards School.

Firefighters, police, and passers-by helped roll hospital beds and other equipment to the school.

Damage to the Apostolic Faith Ministry building was heavy. There was no immediate word on the cause of the fire.

“It’s really too early to tell,” Gardiner Fire Department Capt. Mark Kimball said Wednesday.

Fire crews began battling the blaze around 8 p.m. and remained on the scene for close to four hours, snuffing out flames in various parts of the building, Kimball said.

The nursing home was evacuated by 9 p.m.

After the evacuation, the school’s multi-purpose room was filled with elderly people in wheelchairs, wrapped in blankets. The floor was covered with exercise mats with sheets on top for temporary bedding.

By 7 a.m. on Wednesday, all residents had returned to Robinson’s, administrator Doris Topa said. She said residents were “having breakfast and getting back to normal.”

Topa praised the response by emergency workers, volunteers and others.

“I really appreciate all the help from the community. It was awesome, awesome,” she said.

The Victorian-style church building undergoing renovation was formerly home to Robinson’s before Robinson’s moved into its current facility.

“It was a great big ball of orange flames, it looked like it started in the basement,” said Lynn Gerard, a neighbor who also grew up just behind the burned building. “It’s sad. It’s such a beautiful, beautiful building.”