No one was injured when a fire destroyed a wooden building at the Peaks Island transfer station and damaged a trash truck Friday afternoon.

The first alarm came in around 12:20 p.m., and immediately the island’s lone firefighter and police officer, along with a small number of volunteers, rushed to the scene.

No one was around when the fire broke out, and the first people on scene had to enter through a locked gate, said Portland Assistant Fire Chief Chris Goodall.

The building that burned stood next to the main transfer station facility, but Goodall said flames did not spread to any other structures. The building contained trash, Goodall said, and was leveled by the flames.

Firefighters extinguish a blaze in a structure that houses a trash compactor at the Peaks Island transfer station on Friday. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

The fire spread to discarded tires nearby.

In addition to the roughly five people who responded immediately on the island, the fire department scrambled the fire boat with about a dozen more firefighters from the mainland to assist.

Crews got the fire under control and were returning to the mainland by about 3 p.m., said Capt. John Brennan. In addition to the building that was destroyed, a trash truck parked nearby also caught fire and was damaged, but fire fighters extinguished it before the truck was destroyed.

 

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