Firefighters in Scarborough and Bath battled house fires Thursday, after both fires were reported about the same time in residential areas with no fire hydrants.
Scarborough fire Chief Michael Thurlow said his department received an emergency call at 4:15 p.m. after a neighbor called 911 to report seeing smoke coming from a two-story home at 34 Woodfield Drive.
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“There wasn’t anybody home,” Thurlow said. “It smoldered for most of the day.”
Scarborough firefighters called a second alarm after arriving to find heavy smoke venting from the back of the house and fire burning in the basement and first floor, the chief said.
There are no fire hydrants in Scarborough north of Interstate 95, so the department created a rolling water brigade, using trucks to ferry water to tankers at the scene of the fire. Scarborough police closed a section of Broadturn Road between Holmes and Longmeadow roads while trucks went back and forth through that area to Woodfield Drive.
No one was hurt in the fire, and the family who lives there had somewhere else to spend the night, the fire chief said.
Thurlow said about 35 firefighters in nearly 20 fire vehicles arrived, which he considered notable because many workers at departments in the area were away for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Investigators have yet to determine where in the house the fire started or what caused it. It took firefighters about 45 minutes to extinguish the fire, he said.
The fire in Bath, at 9 Hound’s Way, was also reported during the late afternoon, an emergency dispatcher from the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office confirmed around 4:15 p.m. Firefighters from multiple agencies were sent to help, and they had it under control before 6 p.m., the dispatcher said.
No other details from the Bath fire were immediately available. No firefighters who were at the scene returned a phone message left with the sheriff’s office.
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