CORINTH – What took years to build and maintain, fire razed in minutes Thursday afternoon, spreading quickly through a diesel repair shop and leveling it.

When firefighters arrived at the two-building shop owned by Frank Lambert on the Beech Grove Road, flames already had burned through the roof, said Corinth Fire Chief Scott Bragdon. Thoughts of saving the building quickly turned to containing the blaze and preventing it from reaching nearby woods, hay and a house.

No one was injured.

As Corinth firefighters concentrated their efforts on the main building, firefighters from Kenduskeag took preventive steps, spraying water on the house several hundred feet away. Other fire departments, including Levant, Bradford, Glenburn, Hudson and Charleston, fought the flames.

Neighbors were the first on the scene, with Tim Burns and Tony Connors making forays into the burning building to save what they could. Burns rolled out several tanks of oxy-acetylene, fearing they could explode, while Connors grabbed tools, a jack and any other equipment he could carry or pull.

When they first arrived, the fire was concentrated in the back wall. But within a few minutes, the fire had advanced to other parts of the building and the heat became unbearable.

Several hundred feet from where Lambert worked on diesel engines and equipment, heat from the diesel-fueled fire melted some of the siding on Lambert’s home. The windows were hot to the touch, and firefighters told people inside the home to remove the curtains because they could catch fire from the heat of the glass.

The heat also melted the tail lights of a pickup truck and a trailer, and Bragdon suspected that it was also responsible for igniting bales of hay located about 25 feet from the building. Lambert used his tractor to lift and separate the bales, but was replaced when an excavator from C&C Foundations, down the street, arrived and lifted them, allowing firefighters to hose them down. Lambert hauled sand with his tractor to stem the flow of oil-laden water streaming from the fire scene.

Neighbors, friends and associates said Lambert spent more than two decades building up his business and that during that time he earned a reputation for being thorough and among the best diesel repairmen anywhere.

Lambert told friends that he didn’t have insurance because he couldn’t afford it.

Chief Bragdon said he would be calling in an investigator from the state Fire Marshal’s Office to determine how the fire started and where, a daunting task as the fire left everything charred. Lambert said he suspected that the fire began in the chimney, where he believes squirrels had packed papers which ignited when he started his stove.