Another fire strikes Deer Isle boatyard

DEER ISLE – Fire destroyed a storage and repair shed at the Jericho Bay Boatyard early Sunday, the second fire to hit the boatyard this year.

Eight to 10 pleasure boats, mostly powerboats, were in the shed at the time of the fire. The total damage could reach as high as several million dollars, according to Deer Isle Fire Chief Brent Morey.

Morey didn’t know whether the boats and building were insured.The first call came in at about 2:50 a.m., and when firefighters arrived, the building already was engulfed in flames, the chief said.

“We had fire coming out of the west back end when we got here,” Morey said.

An initial lack of water hampered the firefighters, the chief said. The boatyard is in the Sunshine section of town near the end of a narrow road. During the earlier fire at the boatyard, firefighters were able to draw salt water from the nearby cove.

This time, however, the tide was out, and firefighters were not able to get to the salt water.

“That would have been a lot of help to us,” Morey said. “Once we got the water going, the boys did a pretty good job.”

Still, it was a difficult fire to fight, the chief said. There were eight to 10 fiberglass boats in the building at the time, he said. The fiberglass tends to melt and then fold over the wooden cradles on which the boats sit, making it difficult to get water to the fire.

In addition, several of the large shed doors were closed and locked, further hampering firefighters’ attempts to get water on the blaze. They had to wait until the locks burned off the doors before they could turn their hoses on the fire. There were no doors on the rear of the building, and firefighters had to cut holes in the metal walls in order to get water onto the back portion of the building, Morey said.

It was two or three hours before firefighters felt that the fire was under control.

“It was still burning, but by that time, we knew we had control of it,” Morey said.

The fire was out by about 10 a.m., but crews remained into Sunday afternoon.

No one was injured in the fire, and the chief said that no one had been inside the building since Dec. 22.

The fire appears to have started in a second-floor workshop area at the back of the building, Morey said, although he added that there was no indication as to what caused the blaze.

Inspectors from the state Fire Marshal’s Office will be called in to see if they can determine the cause.

More than 50 firefighters came to the fire scene, with crews from Sedgwick, Brooklin, Brooksville and Stonington joining the Deer Isle department under local mutual aid agreements8.

The fire was the second at the boatyard this year. In April, a fire broke out at the back of a larger boat storage building across the road. That 200-by-80-foot building was destroyed in the blaze, along with more than a dozen powerboats and sailboats inside. Damage to both building and boats was estimated at close to $10 million.