Officials have

been at work

to determine the

cause of the fire.
By Jim Smedley
Staff Writer

NORWAY – The stench of paint and solvents was thick in the humid air Friday as fire and health officials examined the debris from The Norway Color Center fire a day earlier.

Investigator Daniel V. Roy Jr. of the State Fire Marshal’s Office and Brian Smith, an independent fire investigator working for the Peerless Insurance Co., were picking through the rubble beside Main Street trying to find a cause.

Maine Department of Environmental Protection oil and hazardous material specialist Stephen L. Flannery was deciding what pumping had to be done with the forecast of rain for the weekend.

The fire investigators officially listed the cause of the fire as undetermined.

“We’re leaving it undetermined because we’re unable to eliminate electrical as a possible cause,” Roy said. “It looks most probably electrical, but there’s no evidence.”

He said Smith, hired by Peerless do do an investigation, agreed with the assessment.

The boiler, water heater and hot air furnace were also nixed as possible causes Friday by an inspector from the Maine Oil and Solid Fuel Board.

Roy also eliminated arson, saying that through the investigation there were no red flags to make them think the fire was suspicious.

Flannery said he walked along the Pennesseewassee Stream from the point where runoff from the fire scene had entered to the bridge by Route 26.

“The stream cleared up. It was good today,” Flannery said. “We haven’t seen any dead wildlife.”

Flannery was overlooking the remains of the building with David Everett of Everett Excavation of Norway and representatives from CleanHarbors Environmental Services.

Everett knocked down the walls of the home decorating business for safety reasons Thursday afternoon and CleanHarbors removed about 900 gallons of wastewater tainted by paint, solvents and some oil that leaked in when the oil tanks were disrupted by the excavation work.

Flannery told CleanHarbors to begin pumping to get the area as dry of possible.

Now the basement is a morass of burnt timbers, chunks of cement and paint cans with popped lids encompassed by goopy, gray colored water dotted with smatterings of colored paint.

Flannery said there is no way to tell how much more water the basement could hold and did not want any more to overflow.

He said the DEP would check the building again after the weekend, and their job would end there when the basement was completely dry.

jsmedley@sunjournal.com

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