WESTBROOK – A generator is blamed for the blaze, which also claimed two cats.

A fire at 277 Park Road gutted a home and closed the street for a few hours on Tuesday.

The fire began after the homeowner, Tim Crowley, turned on a generator following the nearby crash of car into a utility pole earlier in the day.

Crowley said that the power went out at his Park Road home at 8:30 a.m. after a 2010 Ford Focus crashed near 188 Park Road.

The driver, a 39-year-old Westbrook woman, was treated for back and hip pain. A 3-year-old passenger in the car sustained minor injuries, and the other passenger, a 9-year-old, was unharmed.

Following the power outage, Crowley said, he turned on his generator, which the family checks by turning on once a month.

Soon after the generator was powered up, it started to make a sound as if it had run out of gas, said Crowley. He went outside to check on the generator and saw flames shooting from it.

He tried to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher, but he suffered blisters to his forehead because of the heat. He then called 911 from his cellphone.

“I wasn’t even that close, but the fire was too hot,” Crowley said Wednesday.

Crowley, who lives in Greenland, was home visiting his brother, Daniel Crowley, 61, and his mother, Kathyrn Crowley, 85.

Two cats also lived in the house, but both ran when the fire alarm went off and Crowley assumes they are dead.

“My mom is in a state of shock, and of course she was close to the cats,” Crowley said.

At one point, Crowley said the fire department thought the fire had been contained, but flames swept into the attic, and the house and contents appear to be a total loss.

The family has lived in the home since 1985.

“We just checked again, and it doesn’t look like a lot can be saved. It’s a total wreck,” Crowley said. “The smell [of smoke] is still horrible.”

According to a press release issued by Cpt. Mike Nugent of the Westbrook Police Department, Park Road was re-opened by 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

The fire that destroyed a home at 277 Park Road on Tuesday morning was started by a faulty generator outside the home. The family turned on the generator after a car crashed into a utility pole near the home earlier in the day, cutting power.