TROY – Charlie Baker stood by Monday afternoon helpless and distraught as his 6-year-old business went up in a wall of flames. The building was a mass of flames and smoke before firefighters could get water to the scene.

Baker’s Four Seasons Ranch, a hunting, fishing and archery business, was housed in a converted dairy barn on Route 220.

Baker had left the barn moments before the fire broke out after 2:30 p.m. to adjust his bow after target practice in his indoor 3-D archery range.

“I had a heater going,” Baker explained. “I came back to the house. I got the mail and I saw the smoke.”

Baker tried to get back into the century-old structure to use a fire extinguisher on the blaze, but was driven back by smoke and fast-moving flames. He and his wife, Margie, tried to make a 911 call to notify the Troy Fire Department, but were uncertain if the call went through.

The couple’s phone and electrical lines were connected to the burning barn.

“By the time I got a hold of them, they already knew and were on their way,” Baker said as firefighters from four towns ran hoses up his long driveway. “I lost a lot of stuff.”

Margie Baker and son Ragier took the family pets and drove to a nearby friend’s home.

“I just shut down everything [power] to the barn and waited for the fire department,” Charlie Baker said, wiping away tears of frustration.

The space heater Baker was using to heat the second-floor archery range was suspected of malfunctioning, according to Troy Fire Chief Dan Nealley. He did not have an estimate on the Bakers’ loss.

Siding on the nearby home melted from the heat of the barn fire, but the home was spared serious damage. Firefighters applied water to the rear of the house as flames and smoke continued to consume the business.

“The wind was going in the right direction – away from the house,” Margie Baker said, commenting on her home being spared.

The Bakers moved to Maine from North Carolina seven years ago to develop the four seasons sporting business. The barn on the property was divided into housekeeping cabins for sports enthusiasts who came to fish a stocked trout pond and hunt on 150 acres of rural farm and woodlands.

One of the repeat customers lost some sporting goods in the fire, Margie Baker said.

Baker was target practicing Monday on the indoor archery range in anticipation of the archery competition season, he said.

The Four Seasons Ranch played host to archery and fishing competitions, he said.

Firefighters from Troy, Unity, Thorndike and Detroit responded to the alarm.

“We have an automatic mutual aid call [during the work day],” Nealley said. “Everyone has to come from work. It worked out fairly well, being in the middle of the afternoon as it was.”