By DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer Thursday, February 08, 2007

NEWS UPDATE

FAIRFIELD - The gutted ruins of the Irving Big Stop store and restaurant on Route 201 still smoldered Thursday morning, a day after fire destroyed the business.

Ken Grimes chief investigator with the State Fire Marshals Office said investigators were allowed into the building about 11 a.m. Thursday.

"We're hoping to be done by dark today," Grimes said. "We are concentrating our efforts on the back of the building in the truckers area."

Read more in Friday's Morning Sentinel.

enlarge Jeff Pouland

Firefighters struggle Wednesday afternoon to douse a fire at the Fairfield Irving Big Stop business on U.S. Route 201. The truck stop was destroyed.

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Flames shot 30 feet into the air at times, engulfing the flat roof of the building. The blaze spread slowly from the rear of the truck stop into the kitchen, then to the dining area and finally into the store at the front of the building.

The first fire call came in at about 2:20 p.m. Two hours later, flames were rolling out the front door.

Crews trained hoses on the north side of the building in efforts to keep the blaze from reaching nearby diesel tanks. The efforts were successful.

Windows shattered, propane tanks exploded and the roof collapsed in flames.

Plumes of black smoke billowed high into the afternoon sky as firefighters from several area communities delivered water onto flames that were burning through the roof and doors. Crews were called to the scene from Skowhegan, Winslow, Waterville and other towns.

"It was in the roof, it got into the ceiling, we noticed it coming out a back vent," Fairfield Fire Chief Duane Bickford said at the scene. "At this point we're not sure whether it started in a back bathroom or if there was a drop fire from the ceiling. We have to do a lot more investigating."

Calls for more manpower still were being broadcast three hours after the fire started. A representative from the state Fire Marshal's Office was sent to the scene to assist in the investigation.

Robert Higgins, director of the Somerset County Emergency Management Agency, also was on hand. Representatives from the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army also reported to the fire scene, officials said.

Central Maine Power Co. was called to disconnect electricity to the building. The state Department of Transportation, along with Fairfield Public Works, were alerted to the need for sand and salt along U.S. Route 201 and the parking lot of the truck stop for water that was freezing on contact with the pavement.

Temperatures all afternoon hovered in the mid-teens, with a brisk wind that made it feel colder. There were no reported injuries.

The Department of Agriculture also was notified because of its jurisdiction over restaurants and food service, a fire official said.

Fairfield firefighters first were called to the truck stop for what seemed initially to be a small, smoky fire in the shower area of the truckers' section of the Big Stop. Crews reported not seeing any flames and felt the fire had been contained.

Twenty minutes later the blaze appeared to suddenly rekindle. Firefighters were evacuated from the building and reinforcements from surrounding towns were called in to help.

"The call came in as a fire toward one of the rear bathrooms, that's all I know at the moment," said Fairfield Fire Capt. Jim Lane, the department's fire investigator. "It's gone. It's totally gone. They can't go back into business at all right now, that's totally out.

"That restaurant's toast and everything in it's toast."

The Irving Oil Co. truck stop, for many years a busy place for food and fuel, had been remodeled within the last six months, emerging with a new layout and the name Blue Canoe. The store also recently lost its bid for an off-premises liquor sales license.

Outside the building, before the flames had rekindled into a major fire, store manager Bambi Hartt said she and other Irving Oil employees were attending a meeting when they smelled smoke.

"We had a meeting in our banquet room," Hartt said. "We don't have any idea what happened."

The store was evacuated of all employees and patrons.

"I was in the store and I smelled smoke in the back and the other fellow went and smelled it and he saw smoke come out of the bathroom and he called the fire department," Big Stop employee Don Pelletier said. "It was in one of the showers, in the back shower."

The store and restaurant appeared to have been spared from serious damage after the first response to the truck stop. The front door was propped open to ventilate the store and fire crews appeared to relax.

Suddenly, an hour after the original fire call, flames were showing through the ceiling and into the roof.

Fire crews were ordered to retreat to the yard. By nightfall, all but the stucco and cement block shell of the structure had been destroyed. Later, authorities using heavy equipment demolished the shell of the building, leaving only a pile of rubble.

By late Wednesday investigators were still on scene, attempting to determine the cause of the blaze. They will return today.

Doug Harlow -- 861-9244

dharlow@centralmaine.com