ORLAND – A house that has been a haven for the homeless was destroyed by an early morning fire Tuesday.

Ten people, some of whom had come to the house on Mandela Way seeking shelter, escaped unharmed. Among them was a 92-year-old woman, who was confined to a wheelchair and has Alzheimer’s disease.

“It was horrible,” said Lucy Poulin, director of H.O.M.E. and a member of the St. Francis Community, a society that provides food and shelter to those in need and which owned the building, located off Route 1 near Toddy Pond.

Poulin was asleep inside the home with nine other people when the fire started.

“There was an elderly woman staying there who was bedridden,” she said. “Getting her out in her wheelchair was difficult.”

Flames were visible as the residents worked their way out of the large community house and to safety.

“Thank God, no one was killed,” Poulin said. “But we lost everything. That’s kind of heartbreaking.”

Poulin said one of the men staying at the house is a carpenter and gets up each day at about 4 a.m.

“He noticed the smoke and fire and woke up everybody else,” she said.

The initial call came in to firefighters at about 4:23 a.m., according to Orland Assistant Fire Chief Bob Harriman. From a distance, he said, “all you could see was a thick cloud of dark smoke and an angry red glow in the midst of it.”

“By the time the first firefighters got there, everybody was out safely, but the structure was really roaring,” Harriman said. “At no point did I feel it was a question of trying to save the structure. We were protecting the surrounding buildings. It was just tearing; it was a huge fire.”

The house was at the end of a long dirt road, which slowed the response somewhat, Harriman said. But the road has been improved in recent years, and the department was able to get a lot of equipment to the scene.

The main house, which had nine bedrooms, was gone by the time firefighters arrived, and one vehicle was a total loss. Firefighters saved several outbuildings including a barn and an equipment shed.

Investigators from the State Fire Marshal’s Office inspected the scene, but had not determined the cause of the fire by late Tuesday.

Firefighters from Bucksport, Penobscot and Surry helped to fight the fire, while Sedgwick, Castine and Orrington, covered the stations in those towns.

“We had a lot of people at the scene,” Harriman said. “That sure makes a difference.”

The survivors praised the efforts of the firefighters.

“The Orland Fire Department is phenomenal,” said Mary Ahern, also a member of the St. Francis Community.

In the midst of the fire, members of the department comforted several of those who had been driven from their home.

“They could not have been better,” she said.

Members of the St. Francis Community built the home 35 years ago, Ahern said.

“Everyone is at a loss,” she said. “We lost the home we built 35 years ago. But everyone is safe. And we’ll rebuild.”

Many of those who survived the fire were planning to spend Tuesday night at another small building on the property.