Officials seek cause of Dixfield fire

Terry Karkos/Sun Journal

While trying to determine on Saturday morning what caused Friday night's fire at Denise Letalien's vacant house at 20 Park Ave. in Dixfield, firefighters at left and fire investigator Dan Young of the Office of the Maine State Fire Marshal, watch Young's accelerant-detecting dog make a beeline for the twice-burned house. The first fire occurred on May 3.

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- Terry Karkos/Sun Journal

Terry Karkos/Sun Journal

Fire investigator Dan Young of the Office of the Maine State Fire Marshal waits Saturday morning for his accelerant-detecting dog to pick up possible clues behind the cause of Friday night's fire at 20 Park Ave. in Dixfield. The house first burned on May 3, which is why the broken  windows and doors were still boarded up when firefighters from three towns arrived to fight the second fire.

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- Terry Karkos/Sun Journal

Terry Karkos/Sun Journal

Dixfield firefighters and a fire investigator with the Office of the Maine State Fire Marshal continued their investigation Saturday into the cause of Friday night's fire at Denise Letalien's vacant house at 20 Park Ave. in Dixfield. An area of origin was located on the extensively damaged second floor, fire Chief Scott Dennett said.

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- Terry Karkos/Sun Journal

DIXFIELD — Firefighters called Friday night to the second fire at Denise Letalien's vacant house in exactly six months found the second floor interior and attic ablaze, fire Chief Scott Dennett said.

An interior attack — delayed by boarded-up doors and windows broken from the first fire on May 3 — knocked the fire down in about 10 minutes, Dennett said Saturday morning at the 20 Park Ave. property.

He and other Dixfield firefighters and fire investigator Dan Young with the Office of the Maine State Fire Marshal in Augusta continued their investigation into what caused the building to burn again.

Young was using a dog trained to detect the presence of accelerants, both inside and outside of the building.

"At this point, it's undetermined, but we have an area of origin that we had pretty much determined last night," Dennett said. "Right now, we're looking to see if it's suspicious."

He said the area of origin was on the second floor, "but right now, we're trying to determine which room."

Although a live electrical line was connected to the meter, there was no electricity in the 1½-story house, Dennett said.

Dixfield Fire Co. Lt. Barry Prescott said Friday night that the May 3 fire started in the basement and did very little damage to the first floor.

Dennett said that fire burned itself out after starting at about 9:11 a.m., a few days after Letalien had moved out, leaving the place vacant. Firefighters didn't use any water to extinguish it.

Despite the first fire, the house remained covered by insurance.

In Friday night's blaze, the house sustained extensive fire, smoke and water damage, Dennett said. There was also structural damage to roof trusses.

He said the house would have to be gutted and repaired to make it livable again, but he believed the owner would bulldoze it instead.

No one was found inside the house and there were no injuries to responding firefighters from Dixfield, Mexico and Peru, Dennett said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com