Canadian couple watch camper burn on I-95

MEDWAY – After seeing flames shoot out from underneath their camper at 2 p.m. Monday, Richard and Rosalind Paquette of Windsor, Nova Scotia, pulled over on Interstate 95, unclipped their tow car, escaped with their dog, and watched the vehicle burn down to a 3-foot-high heap of charred rubble.

The Paquettes, who had just left a Millinocket campground and were driving south on I-95, had noticed that the camper appeared to be losing power, eyewitness Chad Diamond of Windham said Monday. He talked to the couple as they waited for police and firefighters to quell the flames.

“[Richard Paquette] pulled over to check and saw fire underneath,” Diamond said.

The camper was stopped about four miles south of Medway.

Maine State Police shut down the southbound lane of I-95 for about an hour because of fears that the camper’s liquid propane gas tanks would explode.

They did not, according to East Millinocket Assistant Fire Chief John Miner, who arrived to assist the Medway Fire Department and the state police.

“It was fully involved when we got there,” Miner said. “It was pretty much brown and glowing.”

A total of nine firefighters from East Millinocket and Medway responded, and left the scene at about 6 p.m. Monday.

Diamond, who was three or four cars behind the accident, said that stranded travelers were milling around I-95, well away from the accident scene.

“There was a school bus full of kids from somewhere,” he said. “I saw a girl or two lying down in the highway.”

When state police allowed the miles of backed-up cars to proceed south, they did not get a very good look at the burned camper, according to Diamond.

“We couldn’t see much because of the smoke,” he said.