HARTFORD – A couple and their five young children were left homeless Tuesday by a fire that destroyed their home on Bear Mountain Road.

A firefighter suffered minor injuries and was treated on the scene by Turner Rescue workers.

Valerie and Kurt Sturtevant and their children Heather, 12; Armand, 8; Noah, 6; Kristen, 3; and Samantha, 8 months; were not home when a Bear Pond resident called at 9:39 a.m. to report smoke billowing down the road toward the pond.

Hartford Fire Warden Norman St. Pierre, who lives a short distance away, was first on the scene.

He said flames were coming from the right front corner of the two-story farmhouse, owned by Valerie’s mother, former Selectman Linda Rowe.

“It looks like it started in the basement,” he said, adding that State Fire Marshal Dan Roy had been called to investigate. With only a portion of a back wall standing, he said, “The way it looks now it’s not going to be easy to determine” a cause.

When St. Pierre arrived he first ran to unhook a dog that was chained outside. The fire had traveled along the length of the plastic-coated chain to within a few feet of the dog, he said.

“I had my gear on, and said just don’t bite me,” he said. He also saved a kitten from the fire.

The family is staying with Rowe, who lives in a smaller house just up the dead-end, dirt road.

“It’s just terrible, but everyone’s safe,” said Rowe, contacted at her home Wednesday. Rowe and her daughter had left that morning on errands in Auburn with the two youngest girls. The other children were in school, Rowe said.

“We are going to rebuild,” said Rowe, who bought the home 18 years ago. She said her daughter and family have rented from Rowe for the past seven years.

Rowe said she had insurance on the house, but her daughter had no insurance on the belongings. The American Red Cross is helping the family, she said.

Firefighting efforts were hampered by a downed power line across the road, St. Pierre said. Tanker trucks couldn’t get close enough to run larger hoses, and smaller hoses had to be snaked around the lines through the woods to reach the house, St. Pierre said.

“We could have knocked it down sooner” if the lines weren’t in the way, he said. It took Central Maine Power Co. a half-hour to arrive to cut power to the lines, he said.

But the bigger problem, said St. Pierre, was the lack of dry hydrants in the area; water had to be shuttled back and forth from the pond, a mile away, to a portable tank set up at the scene.

At one point, the fire crossed the road and was burning brush on that side before it was contained. “We definitely need some dry hydrants in the area,” he said.

The firefighter’s injuries occurred when the second story wall collapsed, he said.

“We were 20 feet from the wall, putting the water right to it. That wall was the last one to burn, and he got hit” by falling debris, he said.

At least 40 firefighters from Buckfield, Canton and Turner responded to the fire. The Department of Environmental Protection has been called to check a brook that runs next to the house for any signs of contamination. The brook flows to Bear Pond, and St. Pierre said an oil tank in the basement of the home will need to be removed.