FREEPORT – Bow Street Market closed down for a few hours on Monday morning due to a small fire that was quickly contained by employees.

Eric Sylvain, deputy fire chief, said that the fire started when an employee was doing service on the power line connecting to a pallet jack. Employees quickly extinguished the fire with dry chemicals made for that purpose, and no one was injured, Sylvain said.

Firefighters responded to the scene at 8:17 a.m., and cleared about an hour later.

“They put it out before we got here, with dry chem,” Sylvain said. “It was quick thinking on their part.”

Sylvain said that a Bow Street Market employee was working on the pallet jack connection when cords fell, allowing negative and positive wires to touch. Plastic on the wires caught fire and spread to nearby shrink wrap, he said.

“There was not a lot of smoke,” he said. “The dry chem worked.”

Sylvain said that the store, which opens at 6, remained closed until someone from the Maine Department of Agriculture conducted an inspection.

“They would be looking at any open food that could be exposed to the dry chem,” Sylvain said.

While firefighters stood by, police Officer Paul Powers blocked the entrance to the market with his cruiser. Powers advised people who wanted to enter – including Kim Gaythwaite, who was walking to work – that the store was closed for the time being. Another employee, Paul Bowie, agreed to block the entrance with his pickup when Powers had to leave on another call.

Eric Sylvain, deputy fire chief in Freeport, speaks to the press Monday morning outside Bow Street Market, where firefighters responded to a small fire caused by a pallet jack.