NORWAY – Former Country Way owner Robert Paradis suffered burns Monday in a fire at a home he was renting on the Greenwood Road in North Norway. He was listed in serious condition Tuesday night at a Portland hospital, a spokesman said.

Paradis was lighting a gas stove in the home about 5 p.m. when the stove “blew up,” Fire Chief Mike Mann said. Paradis and his wife, Lynn, ran outside as the flames quickly spread throughout the building.

The building, near the Norway Center Road, was once the site of the Kuvaja Kountry Store and is owned by Dennis Cyr, Mann said. It was destroyed.

Neighbor Vickie Farr was cooking supper when she heard the call come in on her scanner. She said she raced to the scene to find Paradis in shock, standing watching the flames. Lynn was in the car, talking on the cell phone, she said.

Farr led Robert Paradis over to a neighbor’s house, where his burns were treated until rescue workers arrived, she said.

He was taken by ambulance to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway, treated for burns on his chest and arms, then transferred to Maine Medical Center in Portland, a hospital spokesman said.

Mann said the State Fire Marshal’s office has been called, as is standard with any fires involving injury. He did not know if the couple or the building’s owner had insurance.

At least 40 firefighters from Norway, Paris, Waterford, Otisfield and Oxford responded to the fire. Traffic was rerouted for at least an hour around the Norway Center Road.

Robert and Lynn Paradis lost their home on the Crockett Ridge Road to fire in the late 1990s.

They operated the Country Way from 1996 to 2003, when it was leased to Adam Brown and operated as the El Dorado Restaurant.

Key Bank foreclosed on the building earlier this year, and it was sold at auction.