Young boy killed in Dixmont fire

DIXMONT – A young boy believed to be about 5 years old was killed in a mobile home fire in Dixmont late Friday night.

A neighbor called 911 a little before 9 p.m. after a woman “came running and screeching that her babies were inside.”

Firefighters from several communities quickly put out the fire at the home at 48 Cates Road off Route 7. An official with the State Fire Marshal’s office later confirmed the young boy had died in the fire.

Ron Orcutt, who lives across the road from the mobile home, said he did not know the people very well, but he believed a man named AJ lived there with his girlfriend and her two young children.

Orcutt said that after he called 911, he went across the street where he saw the man had got a young boy, believed to be 3, out of the home and laid him on the grass.

The child’s pajamas were on fire, and the blanket he was wrapped in was falling apart, Orcutt said. He said the man was bleeding and burned.

“There’s nothing we could do,” Orcutt said.

The older model mobile home was in bad condition, he said. “It should have been condemned.”

Firefighters and rescue personnel at the scene referred all questions to the State Fire Marshal’s Office.

Sgt. Tim York of the marshal’s office said at about 11:30 p.m. that three people had been taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and that a young male had died in the fire.

York, who was still at the scene at midnight, did not know the names of the victims and provided no further information. The fire is under investigation.