BRUNSWICK

A fire destroyed a two-apartment duplex building at 10 and 11 Hale St. Tuesday, leaving four homeless.

Brunswick Fire Chief Ken Brillant said the fire department got the call of a building on fire with flames showing at approximately 11:45 a.m. Firefighters could see the smoke as they left Emerson Station on Bath Road.

When they arrived, Brillant said there was heavy fire on one whole side of the building, and was extending into the first and second floor and had already spread into the attic. 

Firefighters did a primary search and started attacking the fire from the interior, then pulled back and finished the attack from the exterior. Once the fire was knocked down, they pushed back inside and finished extinguishing the fire.

A second alarm was struck and Brunswick was assisted on scene by Bath, West Bath and Topsham with Lisbon and Durham fire departments providing station coverage. 

Occupants were home at the time of the fire and were able to escape. One of them called in the fire. 

The American Red Cross has been notified of the individuals displaced by the fire.

Brillant said the fire department’s fire prevention office is investigating the fire along with the Brunswick Police Department. 

Russel Thompson, who had lived in the second floor apartment since October, was home when he discovered the fire.

“I looked out my apartment door and there was just smoke coming up the deck and I looked over and there was just flames down below,” Thompson said. 

Thompson said the fire didn’t look that big at first, so he attempted to hook up a hose from his apartment to extinguish the flames. At that point, Thompson said the flames spread rapidly. 

Looking at his phone, he confirmed calling 911 at 11:45 a.m., just after hooking up his hose and trying to fight the fire. 

Thompson said it started by a trellis on the first floor and climbed up from there and across the bottom of his porch. He said he can’t think of anything below that could have caused the fire. 

Thompson then fled his apartment and ran downstairs to bang on the back door of his neighbor’s apartment.

Cameron Snowden said he had stopped by the building that morning to pick up Michael Darling on the first floor. Darling lived there with his father Nelson “Chip” Darling. 

Snowden remembered he had stopped by to pick up Darling to do some clamming around 9:45 a.m., leaving the apartment around 10 a.m.

Out on the boat around noon, Snowden said he received a text from Nelson Darling that the house had burned down.

“I thought he was joking and I turned down the radio and I heard sirens,” Snowden said, “I didn’t know if it was the song or the radio or if it was actually happening. I turned off the radio and still heard the sirens and saw fire trucks bolting down the road. I said to Michael — dude, your house is burning down!”

Arriving back at the engulfed building Snowden said he and Michael Darling’s efforts from the evening before — about $1,000 of harvested quahogs, had also gone up in flames. 

Snowden said he’s also been helping out around the four building complex owned by John and Beverly Fitzpatrick. He said he’s also been helping out the Darlings as Nelson Darling is disabled. 

Still reeling from the loss, the Fitzpatricks said they’ve owned the four-building complex for eight or 10 years. 

The upstairs windows and roof were new on the building that burned. The couple, along with family members, have been making steady improvements to the buildings and property that share a pond overlook with Sunnybrook Village. 

The Fitzpatricks said they do not know whether they will rebuild or not and that their thoughts were with their tenants at the moment.