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MILLINOCKET – A 41-year-old woman died early Sunday when fire swept through her trailer at Kelley’s Mobile Home Park, firefighters said.
Shortly after being called to the scene by neighbors at about 5:30 a.m., firefighters doused the flames at the trailer at 112 First St. and found what is believed to be the body of Constance Clayton-Willcoxen amid the ruins.
An autopsy will be performed today to determine the body’s identity.
“The fire marshal’s office has no reason to believe it’s anyone other than her, but we will still be doing the autopsy to make sure,” Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said Sunday.
The incident began when the woman, who had been outside at a nearby camp fire for most of the night, went into her trailer home, McCausland said. She wasn’t in there long when neighbors reported hearing her screaming for help. The flames and smoke apparently overcame her before she could escape or firefighters arrived.
The body was found in a small front room of the trailer, McCausland said. The trailer was about 10 feet wide by about 50 feet long.
The fire’s cause has not yet been determined, but foul play is not suspected. An electrical inspector will visit the site today to see whether electrical failure caused the fire, McCausland said.
Fire Chief Wayne Campbell and Police Chief Donald Bolduc did not immediately return telephone messages seeking comment Sunday.
A woman who helps manage the approximately 80-unit trailer park said the fire struck so fast – and so early – that most park residents didn’t know about it until it was over.
“It happened before we were up this morning,” she said.
“It was an older 10-wide. I hadn’t been inside it for a long time, but I think it was in pretty good shape,” park owner and manager James Kelley said Sunday.
The tenant lived in the park for at least three years, said Kelley, who lives near but not in the park.
The woman’s estranged husband is a truck driver who was in a southern state, presumably at work, when the fire occurred, McCausland said.
Kelley described the fire as a rarity within the trailer park.
“It’s been 30 years, I think, since we had one,” Kelley said. “Maybe it’s because most of them are fairly well-maintained.”
Millinocket police, inspectors from the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office and town firefighters were at the scene through most of Sunday assisting in the investigation.
The blaze was the state’s first fatal fire since an April 19 fire in Eastbrook claimed the life of 13-year-old Thomas McNeil and critically injured his father, Eastbrook fire chief Rick McNeil.
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