A wood stove at the John Sylvester home had been improperly installed.
By Terry Karkos
Staff Writer

RUMFORD – A Rumford Fire Department investigation into Sunday night’s fire at the John Sylvester home off Route 108 determined that an unattended, improperly installed wood stove started the blaze.

Deputy Chief Benjamin Byam said the stove, which was located in a small entryway, didn’t have a proper chimney nor enough clearance from room walls.

The stove also didn’t have what’s known as a wall thimble to allow extremely hot smoke and gases to pass through from the stove to a chimney flue, he added.

The house, which sustained heavy smoke and water damage, is a total loss. It was not immediately known if the building at 308 Route 108 – three miles from the Rumford fire station – was insured.

Although no one was injured in the fire, responding firefighters initially believed someone was inside the burning building when they arrived.

“We were called in at 6:21 p.m. to find the entrance part of the house fully involved,” Byam said Monday afternoon. “It had flames showing when we got here, but we knocked it down in 10 minutes and did an interior search for victims.”

Cars parked in the dooryard led firefighters to assume there might be someone inside.

“When you have cars in the dooryard, the first thing you think of is there’s people inside,” Byam said.

But no one was home.

Byam credited mutual aid responses from Mexico, Dixfield, Canton, Peru and Andover fire departments for their assistance in fighting the fire.

“They played a big part. We never ran out of water and that was super,” he said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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