MEXICO - A lawn tractor that smoldered for about seven hours in the rear section of a farmhouse built in 1838 gutted the building, leaving a family of 10 homeless, according to fire Chief Gary Wentzell.

No one was injured in the late Saturday afternoon fire, but the insured house owned by Robert and Theresa Bishop at 25 Backkingdom Road was a total loss, Wentzell said Sunday morning.

Because the Bishops are staying with a relative in York, Wentzell said he contacted the American Red Cross in Lewiston to get help for the family. The Red Cross in turn contacted its York chapter to provide the family with necessities and assistance.

The Mexico Baptist Church and a Rumford Point resident have also started gathering items to help the family, who returned to York after two fire investigators with the Office of the Maine State Fire Marshal completed their investigation.

Wentzell said that on Saturday morning, Robert Bishop tried to start his lawn tractor only to learn that the battery was dead. Once he got it going, he left the tractor running for a while to charge the battery, then shut it off and put it back into a storage area at the rear of the house.

The Bishops and their children, ages 8 months to 14 years, then went to visit a relative in York.

That was a good thing, Wentzell said, because there was only one smoke detector in the 2½-story home and it wasn't working. Four new detectors were in a closet, waiting to be installed.

"If that fire had been during the night, they probably wouldn't have got out," he said.

On Sunday morning, fire investigators Chris Stanford and Kenny McMasters attributed the fire to the badly burned lawn tractor.

Wentzell said he and they believe the tractor smoldered from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. A neighbor across the street called in the alarm, spotting smoke coming from the home at 5:01 p.m.

Mexico and Rumford firefighters responded initially, then Wentzell called in firefighters from Canton, Dixfield, East Dixfield, and Peru, due to intense heat inside that prevented entry.

Wentzell said 40 to 50 firefighters fought the blaze from the outside using aerial ladder trucks and ladders placed on three sides of the faded yellow house, because fire had burned through flooring timbers, rendering it unsafe to enter.

Two Mexico firefighters remained at the house through the night providing security until fire investigators could arrive on Sunday. They helped extinguish a small flare up at 12:45 a.m., despite a heavy soaking by Tropical Storm Hanna.