Firefighters initially did not know the woman was in the building.
MINOT – A fire that destroyed a log cabin on Pottle Hill Road Saturday afternoon claimed the life of a woman, authorities said Sunday.
Fire officials initially thought the cabin was not occupied.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland identified the victim as Danielle Damon, 19. He said she lived in the cabin with her boyfriend, James Lecomte, 21, for about four months.
McCausland said Damon’s father, Mark Damon, owns the cabin. He was in South Carolina at the time of the fire.
A passerby spotted the fire around noon and reported it at 12:03 p.m.
“The boyfriend was out trying to locate some wood for the wood stove. The furnace was out since Friday. The firefighters didn’t have any knowledge that anyone might have been in the rubble until her boyfriend returned,” McCausland said Sunday night.
“The damage was devastating. I was the first one there. The house was fully involved. Fire was coming out of every opening there was,” said Minot Fire Chief Stephen French.
Firefighters used an excavator with a “thumb” to remove sections of rubble. They found Damon’s body beneath the rubble.
McCausland said Damon had worked the previous night and was believed to have been asleep when the fire started.
McCausland said Sunday night that the State Fire Marshal’s Office may never determine what sparked the blaze.
“They don’t have a cause. There was too much damage for the fire marshals to pinpoint a cause. It will go down as undetermined,” McCausland said. The furnace had broken down Friday night and Damon and Lecomte were using a wood stove for heat, he said.
McCausland said no decision was made whether to perform an autopsy by late Sunday.
Firefighters contained the fire just after 3 p.m. Fire departments from Hebron, Mechanic Falls and Poland assisted Minot.
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