Friday, April 6, 2007
Staff photo by Doug Jones
Firefighters extinguish a fire that started after an explosion at 36 Salem St. in Portland on Thursday. The explosion blew out walls and knocked the building off its foundation. Propane and natural gas were in the building, but it's unclear whether either one contributed.
Staff photo by Doug Jones
Jo Coyne of Portland, center, is comforted after an explosion and fire at her home on Salem Street Thursday morning. Coyne was shoveling snow at the time of the blast and was uninjured. No one was inside.
Staff photo by Doug Jones
When Portland firefighters arrived, 36 Salem St. was burning and its first-floor walls were bowed outward.
Public works crews demolished a house in Portland's West End after an explosion and fire Thursday threatened to collapse the building.
The 2‡-story building on Salem Street, worth more than $250,000, was falling down even as firefighters battled the blaze.
Fire officials say that it will be very difficult to conduct any kind of investigation to determine what caused the explosion at 10:15 a.m.
"Certainly, we don't suspect anything suspicious or criminal at this time," said Fire Chief Fred LaMontagne. "There was definitely a fuel source. there was both propane and natural gas in the building. I'm not sure we can even say one of those was a contributor."
There was no indication that the house at 36 Salem St. had lost electricity in Thursday's snowstorm, LaMontagne said.
The fire is now being investigated by the owner's insurance company, he said.
The explosion, which blew out walls of the house and knocked it off its foundation, and the fire that followed could easily have killed anyone inside, but nobody was indoors.
Jo Coyne, who has owned the home for 10 years and made many improvements to it, had just left the house.
"I was outside shoveling snow and I heard a boom and I thought it was a bunch of snow sliding off the roof, so I went to protect my head and then I guess right after that, smoke started coming out," she said.
Her tenant was not at home at the time and there were no pets inside, said Coyne, who is a leader of the West End Neighborhood Association.
"I didn't really realize what was happening until I came around to the front of the house, and then I could just see the wall was all pushed out and the front door was in," she said. "It was just a mess and smoke was starting to pour out."
Coyne said she will stay with family members while the property's future is resolved.
Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:
Staff Writer Gregory D. Kesich can be contacted at 791-6336 or at:
gkesich@pressherald.com
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