Investigators say they will not be able to determine the cause of a massive fire at a scrap metal recycling company in Topsham Monday because the scrap heap where the fire began was disturbed and moved during efforts to fight the fire, the state fire marshal’s office said Wednesday.

Sgt. Ken Grimes of the state Fire Marshal’s office said the cause of the fire is officially undetermined. The origin of the flames was somewhere in a large pile of shredded scrap metal that used to be vehicles.

The fire at Grimmel Industries at 80 Pejepscot Village was reported at 5:57 p.m. Monday, but was not extinguished until before 4 a.m. Tuesday. Grimmel is a recycler of scrap metal, including cars and trucks.

Also in the material that burned were shredded pieces of insulation, plastic, foam and remnants of flammable liquids, such as gasoline, motor oil or brake fluid.

Firefighters struggled to get enough water onto the blaze because of faulty hydrants in the area, and had to truck in water from nearby. It took nearly 10 hours to fully extinguish the flames.

“Sometimes fire departments have to alter the scene to extinguish the fire, but any altering of the scene changes th fire patterns and changes the positioning of the materials that burned and that repositioning can make it difficult for a fire investigator to make a determination, Grimes said. “In this particular case, the materials in the pile themselves would have made it difficult to determine the origin even without moving the materials.”

A spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection said DEP officials are at the scene Wednesday, but it was unclear what they were looking for.

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