MONSON – A local man died Friday night in a fast-moving fire that consumed his Water Street home.

Leroy Nightingale Jr., 64, lived alone with two springer spaniels that also died in the fire.

Neighbors spotted the flames and called the Monson Fire Department at about 7 p.m.

Fire Chief Roy Sargent, who was the first on the scene, said the porch and the front of the two-story structure were in flames when he arrived.

At first, Sargent wasn’t sure anyone was home, but neighbors alerted him that they had seen Nightingale at the house earlier in the day.

Firefighters checked with the Sheriff’s Department and discovered that Nightingale had been released Friday morning from Piscataquis County Jail after spending a week incarcerated for a probation violation.

Though firefighters were concerned the building might collapse, they entered the structure and found his body on the second floor in a rear room where it appeared he had been trying to flee the fire.

The body was quickly removed and later identified by Jackie Reynolds of Guilford, who said she lived with Nightingale for 12 years in Willimantic before he moved to Monson in 1999. She said she and Nightingale had remained friends and that one of the dogs, Casey, was hers. The other dog, Princess, was his, she said.

Someone who knew of their relationship had called Reynolds at her Guilford home to come identify the body, she said.

About 30 firefighters from Monson, Guilford and Sangerville fought the fire for more than two hours to get it under control. Ice formed on some of the firefighters’ beards and clothing as they battled flames, but no one was injured.

Chief Sargent said mutual aid from area communities was “amazing.”

A Mayo Ambulance also came to the scene and firefighters from Dover-Foxcroft stood by at the Guilford fire station.

Though the Nightingale home was in a residential area, there was enough distance and snow between it and the nearest homes that no other structures were in danger.

Only a burned-out shell of the home remained at about 10:30 p.m. as Sgt. Ken Grimes and two other officials from the State Fire Marshal’s Office attempted to determine the cause of the fire.

Grimes said the medical examiner’s office had been contacted to determine whether Nightingale’s body would be taken to the lab in Augusta for an autopsy or be released to the local funeral home.