By Renee Worthing 

Register Reporter 

   A multi-alarm fire sent about 10 local fire departments rushing to the scene of an industrial building fire on the Sanford Regional Airport grounds.

   Sanford Assistant Fire Chief Jeff Rowe said maintenance personnel at the airport called 911 after noticing smoke rising from the building around 1:30 p.m. on March 15.

   Rowe said firefighters entered the building shortly after arriving on scene, but were forced to retreat when explosions erupted inside the building. 

   About an hour into fighting the fire, the white smoke became a massive, roiling black cloud. Some firefighters retreated with their hoses as others scrambled to move a fire truck back a couple hundred feet.

   Rowe said the black smoke was caused by chemical and fuel oils.

   He said when containers of gas, propane and other combustible materials reach certain temperatures, safety relief valves release, discharging the combustible fuels. Heat and flames ignite the fumes, causing explosions and black smoke.

   He said the firefighters retreated in a defensive mode to avoid the smoke as well as shrapnel and fragments of the collapsing building.

   Wells and Sanford firefighters kept an eye on the roof from extended aerial ladders. The roof of the building buckled, leaving air-conditioning units and other venting units askew.

   “The fire is under control as far as being contained within the building,” Rowe said at about 4:15 p.m.

   Sanford Fire Captain Brian Smith said there would be a “presence of firefighters at the scene throughout the night to monitor hot spots.

   Rowe said there was an initial report of a firefighter with an injured leg, but he said it turned out to be a “Charlie horse.” He said the firefighter was examined on-scene and returned to duty.

   The Salvation Army provided coffee, hot cocoa, water and snacks for the firefighters and a port-a-potty was also delivered.

   The structure, owned by Kennebunk resident Robert Curry, housed four businesses including Applied Motion, DM Technologies, which manufactures computer components and Allthermal, a heating, ventilating and air conditioning business.

   Office space in the 120-foot-by-130-foot building is also used as a staging area by the Secret Service when President George Bush visits his family’s home in Kennebunkport, Rowe said.

   Curry, who was on the scene, said he had been working at the building all morning with another person.

   “We left at about 1 p.m.,” Curry said. “I no more than left when I got a call from [Sanford Regional Airport Manager] Evan [McDougal].”

    McDougal said he called Curry to alert him to the smoke coming from the building.

   “I was about a half-hour away,” Curry said.

   He said he didn’t know what could have caused the fire and said the “only thing left on was the furnace.”

   Curry also said heating ovens for the computer component manufacturing may have malfunctioned. He said he called his tenants, but was unable to reach them.

   He said he was unaware if any of the tenants had insurance. Curry said he operates the building as a business incubator, charging “very little rent” to fledgling business to help them get started. Curry also operated his own business, Northern Machines, inside the building.

   “They are supposed to carry insurance,” Curry said.

   He said he only has insurance on the building, which is on property leased for 39 years from the town of Sanford.

   “I had probably a quarter of a million dollars worth of machines in there,” Curry said. “It will be a total loss.”

   Central Maine Power technicians Greg Machus and Eric Fletcher also arrived to “de-energize” electricity from the pole to the building in order to make it safe for the fighters to battle the blaze.

   Machus said they had to “flip a couple of switches” at the pole and install grounds to make it “totally safe.”

   The state fire marshal, who was on his way home from a fire at a yacht yard in Eliot the night before, was on-scene. He said his investigation would begin as soon as the fire was extinguished.

   The fire marshal stayed at the scene throughout the weekend to “guard the continuity” of the scene, Parent said. 

   “We waiting to get cranes in to take the building apart,” Parent said. 

   He said the intense heat caused steel beams to warp and bolts to pull out, leaving the integrity of the building in question. 

   He said the state fire marshal has already taken photos and mapped the scene. He said dismantling the building will not affect the investigation. 

   Parent said fire investigators with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had been called to the scene to help with the investigation, but weren’t expected to arrive until later in the week. 

   To contact Renee Worthing, email news@intheregister.com or 282-4337 ext. 240