GARDINER — A historic Gardiner home Saturday morning was destroyed and one of the occupants was treated for burns as firefighters from six communities worked to knock down a blaze amid single-digit temperatures.
The fire at the Laura E. Richards House was reported around 7 a.m. on Christmas Eve and drew a response from Gardiner, Augusta, West Gardiner, Togus, Farmingdale, Pittston and Randolph fire departments.
The home at 3 Dennis St., also known as The Yellow House, was the former residence of the author Laura E. Richards. She was first person to win a Pulitzer Prize for biography, in 1917. The winning book chronicled the life of her mother, poet Julia Ward Howe, who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
The Federalist-style home was built in 1814 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Richards, a Boston native, moved to the home in Gardiner in 1876 with her architect husband, Henry Richards, and they painted it yellow, which it had remained since. She wrote more than 90 books during her career.
Richards lived most of her adult life in Gardiner, where she also was a founder of several community institutions. An elementary school in the city is named after her.
Fire Chief Rick Sieberg said two occupants were home at the time of the fire and both made it out. One of them, Sam Shaw, suffered burns to his hands trying to put the fire out and was taken by ambulance to the hospital, Sieberg said.
Sieberg said the homeowner said the fire appeared to have started near where a generator was running, just hours after a powerful storm knocked out power to tens of thousands of Central Maine Power customers. An investigator from the Office of the State Fire Marshal responded Saturday morning to investigate and, Sieberg said, determined the cause of the fire was not suspicious and cited the generator as the cause of the blaze.
Sieberg said the couple were at the home sleeping when they were alerted to the fire by their dog. They awoke to discover the back part of the house was on fire.
The dog was not able to be saved and died in the fire.
Sieberg said the house was destroyed in the blaze. Additionally, because the house was so badly damaged by the flames, with its massive chimneys still standing, authorities decided to have it torn down rather than risk the structure or chimneys collapsing onto someone. Contractor McGee Construction leveled the structure Saturday afternoon.
Sieberg said the balloon-frame construction of the home helped the flames spread quickly and throughout the structure, and that damage to the interior of the home was extensive.
“It quickly became unsafe for firefighters to get inside,” Sieberg said at the scene Saturday morning, “so they’re fighting it from outside.”
Sieberg said the fire was still going just after 11 a.m. Saturday. By 3 p.m. the fire had been extinguished but some firefighters remained at the scene later than that to water-down the remnants of the building as it was demolished.
The six-bedroom historic home is owned by Kim Shaw, who Sieberg said was living in an in-law apartment there but who was not home at the time of the fire.
City tax assessment records indicate it is appraised at $331,500 and is a single-family home with an in-law dwelling unit.
As firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze, smoke permeated the air in the surrounding area, including downtown Gardiner, where shoppers visited Reny’s and other shops.
Firefighters from a ladder truck blasted jets of water into the roofline of the home as smoke billowed out. By 9:30 a.m., some firefighters who responded to the mutual aid call for help from other area departments were packing up some hoses and leaving the scene. But other firefighters remained on the scene, streaming water onto and into the still-burning structure.
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