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AUTHORITIES RESPOND to a fire on Dow Road in Orrington on Saturday. The blaze killed a father and his three children, while the children’s mother escaped and was taken to a hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, authorities said.
AUTHORITIES RESPOND to a fire on Dow Road in Orrington on Saturday. The blaze killed a father and his three children, while the children’s mother escaped and was taken to a hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, authorities said.
ORRINGTON (AP) — Electrical and heating inspectors joined Maine fire officials Sunday to search for clues in a fire that killed a father and his three children and hospitalized the mother.

Neighbors who heard a woman’s screams coming from the rural house in Orrington reported the fire at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday. Fire marshals were still hoping to interview the mother Sunday evening before releasing their findings today, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland.

Christine Johnson, 31, escaped the fire and was hospitalized for smoke inhalation. Her husband, 30-year-old Benjamin Johnson III, was killed in the blaze, along with their children: two boys, 9-year-old Ben and 4-year-old Ryan, and one girl, 8-year-old Leslie.

McCausland said autopsy results were also expected to be available today.

Officials said the family had moved into the rental house outside of Bangor about six months ago.

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Benjamin Johnson worked at Hollywood Casino in Bangor, and Christine Johnson is an author who worked from home, McCausland said.

Officials at the Center Drive School, where Ben and Leslie attended school, said that today was a school holiday in observance of Veterans Day but that it would be open with counselors on hand from noon to 3 p.m. during the day.

The blaze was the deadliest fire in Maine in almost 20 years, state police said. Four people died in a Portland apartment house fire in December 1992, and that blaze was set by an arsonist.


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