WATERVILLE — State fire officials continue to investigate two arson fires that occurred within minutes of each other Sunday involving a pickup truck on Elm Street and an apartment building about 100 yards away on Silver Street.
The pickup truck was destroyed. The fire at 58 Silver St., which was set in a first-floor common area closet, was extinguished, leaving only minor damage.
“They’re both still under investigation,” Sgt. Ken Grimes, of the state fire marshal’s office, said Wednesday. “We spent some time conducting interviews, doing some neighborhood interviews of anyone that may have seen anything. So far, at this point, we don’t have any suspects, but we do continue to investigate.”
Grimes said Monday the fires were intentionally set and Fire Chief David LaFountain said that fire was also found in the stairway of the building, which would indicate the person who set it was trying to prevent tenants from getting out. He said stairway fires are unusual.
Waterville fire Capt. John Gromek said Wednesday that a tenant in the apartment building told him he heard a fire alarm go off in the building but did not initially check to see where it was coming from.
“When he did, there was a significant amount of smoke in the hallway and he could not exit his apartment and had to climb down off a second-story porch,” Gromek said.
Gromek said he wants to remind people to leave a building when a smoke detector goes off and call the Fire Department.
“This may have given that person plenty of time to exit the building before the smoke filled the stairwell and hallway,” he said.
Police, who had been at the truck fire, ran through a wooded area to the Silver Street apartment house and pounded on doors to get tenants out. One person police helped to flee, Janette Jones, 59, who uses a wheelchair and lives in a first-floor apartment, said she had heard the smoke alarm in the hallway go on and off during the weekend, and the first time it did so, on Friday night, she called police.
Police were called to 43 Elm St. at 10:44 p.m. Sunday to deal with the truck fire and found a 2011 Tacoma Toyota pickup engulfed. Five minutes later, at 10:49 p.m., authorities were notified there was a fire at the apartment building.
The three-story building has five apartments. Last year, when Jones was in the hospital, a fire started in her bedroom. The building was evacuated and firefighters extinguished the fire, which was later deemed to be electrical in nature.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
Send questions/comments to the editors.
