SACO — A Connecticut man was rescued Tuesday after his boat went up in flames near Wood Island, forcing him to abandon the vessel aboard a dinghy.

The call came out at 7:40 a.m., said Saco Deputy Fire Chief David Pendleton, and firefighters from Saco and Biddeford responded on Saco’s rescue boat. The Coast Guard and Maine Marine Patrol also responded to the scene.

The owner of the boat, 62-year-old Timothy Lenz of Waterford, Connecticut, was unsure why his 31-foot fiberglass Silverton caught fire.

“It just came out of nowhere. I was amazed at how fast it happened,” he said as he stood at the pier at Camp Ellis Tuesday morning around 8:45 a.m., a little shaken but not seriously injured.

“The heat was so intense, it melted pretty good,” said Lenz. “It went up like a crispy critter.”

Lenz, who was the only one aboard the vessel, left the boat via a dinghy. A local good Samaritan, who wishes to be unnamed, helped Lenz out of the skiff and brought him to the Marine Patrol vessel, said Pendleton.

Although Lenz was able to leave the incident relatively unharmed, after coming to shore, he learned that his boat was submerged.

Lenz had been living on the boat in the Portland area since November, and his driver’s license and other important items went down with the boat. He said he was heading south Tuesday, and planned to stop in New Hampshire before going back to Connecticut.

The geographic coordinates of the submerged boat will be recorded, and the Coast Guard will decide whether to recover the submerged vessel, said Pendleton.

The cause of the fire was undetermined as of Tuesday.

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.