DOVER-FOXCROFT – A mattress that caught fire, then was discarded, wound up igniting the wall of a barn on North Street.

Fire Chief Joseph Guyotte said Tuesday that an electric heater being used in a home owned by Terry Perkins ignited a mattress late Monday night.

The residents in the home extinguished the fire and carried the mattress outside, leaving it next to their barn.

“They thought they had put the fire out, but they hadn’t,” Guyotte said.

The smoldering mattress set fire to a barn wall, he said.