Fire at East Millinocket mill burns 45,000 tons of paper

EAST MILLINOCKET – No one was injured in a Wednesday morning fire at the Katahdin Paper Co. mill that incinerated 45,000 tons of paper and took firefighters more than 12 hours to extinguish, according to fire officials.

Employees working in the recycling plant, where the fire started, were able to escape at about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday when tons of newsprint, catalogs and other recyclable paper products caught fire, East Millinocket Fire Chief Les Brown said Thursday. The cause of the fire is unknown, he said.

Some or all of the paper may be salvaged, Katahdin Paper spokesman Glenn Saucier said Thursday.

Heavy smoke and steam impeded the efforts of 35 firefighters from East Millinocket, Millinocket and Lincoln who struggled to gain access and ventilate the fire, Brown said.

“There was no way to ventilate,” he said, adding that existing vents had to be removed from the side of the building to reach the fire. “It’s a huge warehouse.”

No machinery was damaged in the fire, the fire chief said.

Firefighters equipped with breathing apparatuses and thermal imaging cameras used front-end loaders to take the burning paper outside the building, where it was extinguished, Brown said. Crews didn’t leave until 8 p.m. Wednesday, more than 12 hours after the fire started, he said.

Mill employees began work in the plant, which had no structural damage, shortly after the Fire Department left, Saucier said.

A loss estimate has not been determined because some of the paper still may be recovered, Saucier said.

“We could have lost very little to a whole bunch,” he said.