HOULTON – A 53-year-old man who worked as a meat cutter at a local grocery died Saturday when a fire aided by high winds gutted his house on Columbia Street, state police said.

Firefighters found Duane Knapp’s body after a next-door neighbor saw smoke pouring from 30 Columbia St., where Knapp lived alone, and called 911 at about 3 p.m. Four Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office investigators were working Sunday to determine what caused the blaze.

The fire was the second fatality this weekend, said Stephen McCausland, state police spokesman. A 93-year-old Palermo man died early Saturday when fire swept his farmhouse.

Houlton Fire Chief Milton Cone knew almost immediately that the Columbia Street blaze was bad news. Firefighters who responded to the alarm in three vehicles, a pumper, ladder truck and pumper-tanker, saw acrid black smoke in the area before they arrived at about 3:05 p.m., Cone said.

When they arrived, they saw flames pouring from upstairs and downstairs windows, he said. Electrical wires downed in the driveway near the house’s primary entrance prevented an interior attack on the flames, but as far as saving Knapp went, that might not have made any difference.

“We were faced with a tremendous heat build-up and smoke and flames that would have had to be dealt with before we could have gotten into the house,” Cone said Sunday.

Firefighters used three hose lines, including the ladder truck’s deck gun, to blast water into the house over the wires, Cone said. They had to climb snowbanks in the yard to get into the house. Cone also sought mutual aid from the Hodgdon Fire Department.

A team of firefighters using a thermal imaging camera found Knapp’s body.

“It’s a tragic situation,” Cone said. “I feel for his family.”

The fire appeared to start in the front end of the house and sweep to the rear and into the second floor up a staircase. Cone said he believes the open architecture of the first floor – it lacked separations between rooms – allowed the fire to burn hot and fast.

“There was nothing there to slow it down,” Cone said.

Exceptionally windy conditions also made firefighting difficult.

About 25 Houlton firefighters went to the scene. Cone rotated them through an ambulance to keep them warm in the freezing temperatures, he said. No one was injured fighting the fire.

Firefighters weren’t sure, but it seemed possible that the house lacked smoke detectors, Cone said. No one heard their warning blare when they got there, indicating that the detectors were destroyed already, weren’t working or weren’t installed.

“People should make sure they have working smoke detectors at every level of the house,” Cone said, “and they should have escape routes planned. And if there’s a fire, they should get out and stay out.”

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