CORNVILLE — A 14-year-old girl has been charged with arson in connection with a Monday night fire that destroyed a barn owned by Maine-based nonprofit Spurwink.

The Office of State Fire Marshal arrested a 14-year-old girl for allegedly setting a fire intentionally in the barn, Sgt. Ken Grimes said Tuesday.

The girl allegedly lit the hay stored inside the 40-feet-by-100-feet barn at 866 West Ridge Road, he said. She was taken to Mountain View Youth Development Center in Charleston.

Grimes said he believes the girl was a resident of the house attached to the barn. The house is part of a residential program run by Spurwink, a nonprofit that runs six special education schools and 55 homes for children and adults with behavioral or developmental disabilities, according to its website.

A barn is engulfed in flames Monday night in Cornville in a photo taken by Skowhegan Fire Chief Shawn Howard.

A barn is engulfed in flames Monday night in Cornville in a photo taken by Skowhegan Fire Chief Shawn Howard.

The facility in Cornville, which is one of Spurwink’s multiple campus-type locations around the state, provides both residential and day treatment and has two live-in staff members at the house, which serves three clients, according to Kristen Farnham, vice president of development. There are some minors in either program, but Farnham said she could not release more information about the residents because of client confidentiality agreements.

Farnham declined to comment on the teenager’s arrest or to say whether similar incidents had occurred previously at the Cornville location or elsewhere.

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“Spurwink is extremely grateful for the response of the fire departments,” she said. The nonprofit is in the process of working with its insurance company, Farnham said.

The fire began around 5:15 p.m. Monday and destroyed the barn, along with the hay and farm machinery inside it, Cornville Fire Chief Ken Hogate said. Hogate said he owned the machinery and bales of hay and traded services, such as mowing and plowing, with the school in exchange for the storage space.

While the barn was attached to a garage and house, there was about 12 feet between the structures, so the dozen fire departments that responded were able to extinguish the fire before any damage was done to other buildings, Hogate said. Firefighters put more than 100,000 gallons of water on the barn, hauling it from about 10 miles away, he said.

There were no animals in the barn at the time and no one was injured in the fire.

The Cornville Fire Department left the scene around 11:15 p.m., Hogate said.

Fire departments also responded from Athens, Skowhegan, Madison, Norridgewock, Harmony, Canaan, Hartland, St. Albans, Anson, Clinton and Starks.

Madeline St. Amour — 861-9239

mstamour@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @madelinestamour

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