MILLINOCKET – A pulper at a town paper mill was back in operation Monday after minor damage from a fire that took about 14 firefighters from two towns to quell overnight Sunday. No injuries were reported.

The fire at the Katahdin Paper Co., 1 Katahdin Drive, was reported shortly before midnight. When firefighters arrived, the blaze was not very large but proved to be exceedingly elusive, Millinocket Fire Chief Wayne Campbell said.

“I don’t know whether it was dust or what,” Campbell said Monday, “but it was a very stubborn fire. When it gets into the cracks and crevices of the upright paper machine like that, it spreads very quickly and it can be very difficult to contain.”

Campbell called for mutual assistance, and the East Millinocket Fire Department sent a truck with seven firefighters, he said. The East Millinocket firefighters, with the two firefighters and five part-timers from Millinocket, were enough to get the fire under control by about 3:15 a.m.

The area that burned took no structural damage, said Glenn Saucier, a Katahdin Paper human resources manager. Workers were back on the job Monday morning.

The fire was accidental, Campbell said. He and Saucier said they thought it began with a spark from the machine that ignited some wood or paper dust. A pulper is a machine that mechanically and chemically processes the fibers of wood chips, or artificial nonwoven fibers, to reduce them to pulp.