CANTON — Sherwood Campbell was a large man who adored his small dogs.

At 64, he had no children and doted on the long-haired miniatures.

So his neighbors and family members were saddened, but not surprised, that Campbell charged into his burning home Tuesday in a desperate effort to rescue his pets, shrugging off his brother-in-law who tried to pull him to safety.

Firefighters found Campbell’s body Wednesday morning at the entrance to his second-floor bedroom, the body of his dog Whomper with him, relatives said.

“He just loved his dogs. They were his world,” said his sister Cindy Holland.

Besides Whomper, he had Little Dog, a white Pomeranian, Holland said.

A third dog, his parents’ black miniature pinscher named Muppet, also perished.

Campbell’s parents, who are in their 80s, were not at home at the time because his father, Sheldon, was in Maine Medical Center’s intensive care unit in Portland for a heart condition and his mother, Norma, was there with him.

The state Fire Marshal’s Office is still trying to determine what caused the fire, which started in the area of the kitchen at the rear of the house.

Mark Blanchette, Campbell’s brother-in-law, said he was in his home across the street when Campbell ran over Tuesday afternoon, yelling that the house was on fire.

“He had soot all over him and on his face,” said Blanchette, who didn’t know whether Campbell had woken to the fire or tried to put it out.

Gordon Stevens, who lives in a house just a few feet from where Campbell’s house stood, had just gone into his bathroom when he saw thick black smoke roiling from the house.

“Sherwood came out of the house and ran down to Mark’s. I don’t think they even have a phone,” he said of the Campbells.

Blanchette went across the street to the burning house and Campbell followed. The two were staring at the front door, as smoke billowed from the entrance and the windows, when Campbell pushed past Blanchette and started up the stairs just inside the doorway.

“He shoved me out of the way and went after the dog,” Blanchette said. “I kept telling him the dog’s not worth it.”

Blanchette latched onto Campbell’s leg but could not pull Campbell — who he said weighed 300 to 400 pounds — from the house. Instead, Campbell pulled him up the stairs.

“I held it as long as I could,” Blanchette said. “I had to let him go.”

Blanchette heard Campbell wheezing and was unable to breathe himself. The sounds of the fire surrounded them, and made it sound like the smoke was talking, he said.

He let go, ran outside and inhaled deeply, holding his breath as he ran back up the stairs and grabbed Campbell again, he said.

Campbell made the top of the stairs and turned left, wrenching out of Blanchette’s grasp.

Dense smoke on the second floor made it almost impossible to see, Blanchette said. He retreated, and heard his brother-in-law succumb and then call for help.

“He asked me to help him three times. The last time, you could barely hear him. It was really faint. I couldn’t go back in,” he said.

Stevens, the neighbor, said he and Blanchette and Blanchette’s daughter were at the house when firefighters arrived. Flames had erupted out of the rear of the house.

When the first firetruck arrived, Blanchette, who was until recently an assistant fire chief, and Stevens directed a spray of water at the back of the house until more firefighters arrived.

Fire Chief Shane Gallant said the station got the call at 4:45 p.m., and when firefighters arrived the building was engulfed. “By the time we had the personnel to do anything interior, it was too dangerous.”

Firefighters from Canton and surrounding western Maine towns attacked the fire but made slow progress. They kept it from spreading to neighboring houses, but the Campbells’ house, at 9 School St., was destroyed.

The fire spread quickly, in part because of Norma Campbell’s large accumulation of possessions. Stevens said there were pathways between the belongings in the home.

The family raised chickens, geese and a cow behind their house. Blanchette said his in-laws grew up in the Great Depression.

“The people in town could be mean. They called her a hoarder,” he said.

She had antiques, including enough cookbooks to open a museum, said Cindy Holland, her daughter.

Sheldon and Norma Campbell couldn’t afford insurance on the house, Blanchette said.

Town crews used an excavator to turn over piles of debris Tuesday night and Wednesday morning as they sought to extinguish hot spots and prevent flare-ups. Firefighters didn’t leave until more than 12 hours after the initial call, and even then gray smoke floated up from the pile, nearly two stories high.

Campbell was a fan of the Boston Red Sox and collected baseball cards. He worked for 20 years in a nearby Bass shoe factory, but had to leave as the arduous handwork took its toll on his health and his eyesight worsened, Blanchette said.

He was disabled after being declared legally blind, though surgery had removed cataracts and improved his eyesight, his sister said.

“He had a heart of gold for anybody. He would go without,” said Blanchette, who was married to a sister of Campbell’s before she died of leukemia 4½ years ago. He remains very close to the family, he said.

While the dogs died in the fire along with Campbell, some family cats, which lived mainly in the barn behind the house, survived. The town’s animal control officer had been notified and planned to collect them, Stevens said.

Stevens said he understands Campbell’s devotion to his dogs.

“To him, they were like his kids, and if it were me, there’s nothing that would keep me from going inside after my kids,” Stevens said.

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:

dhench@pressherald.com