By Renee Worthing
Staff Writer
A discarded cigarette was responsible for a June 17 fire that spread to the eaves of a 115-year-old home on Main Street in Springvale at about 2 p.m.
Homeowner Timothy Goodwin, wearing partially melted sneakers, and his mother-in-law, Patricia Donahey, sat on the stoop of a neighboring home with one of their dogs, while Sanford firefighters peeled away layers of the roof and aimed a water hose at the resulting hole.
Goodwin said he tossed a cigarette in a can on the upstairs porch known as a widow’s walk and went back inside the house.
Goodwin said about 20 minutes later, a passerby banged on his front door, breaking the glass.
“He said we had to get out, there was a fire,” Goodwin said.
Goodwin ran upstairs where he stomped the fire out, but Sanford Fire Department Captain Gary Cushing said flames had already spread from the floor to the cedar-shingled wall and into a column that supported the roof.
Cushing said damage to the home was contained to a section of roof over the widow’s walk and a small amount of smoke in the attic.
“It just goes to show no matter how careful you are, there is always one spark that can get away from you,” Goodwin said.
A 20-year smoker, Goodwin said the experience was enough to make him quit smoking.
“The cigarette I had before I threw that last one away should have been my last one,” he said.
Donahey said the home was equipped with smoke alarms, but because the fire happened outside and the wind was blowing away from the house, smoke detectors did not go off.
“We are so lucky,” Donahey said. “We are just so lucky.”
Looking across the yard toward his home, Goodwin shook his head.
“I never wanted to burn our home down,” he said.
Goodwin, his wife LeAnnette, and Donahey, originally from Arkansas, have lived in the house for two years, after moving to the area from Somerville, Mass.
Goodwin and Donahey evacuated two dogs from the home, but four cats remained inside. Cushing said the cats were unharmed.