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BY SCOTT MONROE
Staff Writer 10/08/2008

enlarge Staff photo by Scott Monroe

TOTAL LOSS: A lumber mill owned by Bob Johnson of Canaan was destroyed Tuesday morning after it caught fire shortly after 7 a.m. and quickly burned to the ground. Around 9:30 a.m., firefighters were still dousing scattered patches of fire in the wreckage.

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CANAAN -- It was sunny and cool out when Bob Johnson opened up the sawmill Tuesday morning. Johnson, owner of R. Johnson and Sons Inc., was assisting a customer who had come in early, shortly after 7 a.m.

That's when the commotion started. Mill employees had turned on the generator, which sparked and caught fire on either grease or diesel fuel. Employees grabbed fire extinguishers and sprayed the flames, but the fire quickly crawled up the wall and swallowed the ceiling.

Johnson ran toward the flames to try to save one of his large loaders, but it was too late. The customer helped drag Johnson away as he inhaled heavy smoke. Soon, plumes of black and gray blotted out the blue sky.

"It's a disaster," Johnson said about two hours later, as firefighters continued to douse the flames. "Like anything with a small business, it's your business, your lifeblood. And when you lose those things ..."

The sawmill, off Johnson Flat Road, was destroyed Tuesday morning after the fire engulfed the entire mill structure.

Johnson started the mill business in 1972. He had no insurance and estimated the entire loss to total $300,000, including the loss of the building, equipment and lumber.

"The cost to insure mills are so prohibitive that a small mill really can't afford to have it," Johnson said.

R. Johnson and Sons Inc. was a family affair; he lives with his wife, Nancy, in a house a stone's throw away from the mill. The mill employed about eight people, several of whom were family members.

The mill also paid a few carpenters to build sheds at the mill, Johnson said. Its largest customer was Hancock Lumber. "The whole family worked here off and on," Johnson said. For instance, his son Brett operated the carriage saws and his daughter Gaye processed the lumber.

There was little firefighters could do to prevent the mill's destruction. Johnson said the fire traveled quickly in the lumber mill as it fed on sawdust lining the wooden beams and was fanned by wind pushing through the front doors.

"It had flown up to the ceiling," Johnson said, and it only took about 10 minutes for the entire structure -- 80 feet by 200 feet -- to be engulfed in flames.

Ray Small, Canaan's fire chief, said the fire call came in about 7:30 a.m. Responding were firefighters from Canaan, Clinton, Skowhegan, Hartland, Burnham, Pittsfield and Cornville, Small said.

Small said he was one of the first to arrive on the scene. There were no injuries, he said.

"The whole thing was engulfed in flames," Small said. "We saved a couple of outbuildings, but that's about it."

Firefighters spent the morning and afternoon lifting up chunks of the twisted metal roof and dousing the remaining hotspots with water. The fire engines departed around 1:30 p.m.

This is not the first time Johnson has seen his mill destroyed by fire. That also happened on May 4, 2001, he said, when a welding spark ignited a powerful blaze. The current mill was rebuilt in the aftermath of that fire over the course of three months, he said. The Johnson mill employees hauled saws over to a mill in Farmington during the 2001 reconstruction to keep their lumber contracts.

After a second devastating fire, Johnson isn't sure if the family will rebuild the mill again.

"I don't know what to do," he said. "I think we're going to sit down and figure that out. What with the economy and everything ... you wonder."

Scott Monroe -- 487-3288, 861-9253

smonroe@centralmaine.com

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