By Lisa Chmelecki,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Fire investigators have confirmed that somebody started the fire that destroyed an Auburn apartment building Tuesday night.

No arrests were made Wednesday.

But, according to police, a “person of interest” was arrested in Lewiston Tuesday night on unrelated charges and is currently being held at the Androscoggin County Jail.

The fire broke out about 8:30 p.m. in the kitchen of a fourth-floor apartment. Located at the corner of Main and Newbury streets, the building contained seven apartments.

All of them sustained heavy smoke or water damage, and the entire building will need to be gutted, according Sgt. Ken Grimes of the State Fire Marshal’s Office.

The person who started the fire used “ordinary combustibles,” such as paper, cardboard or linens, Grimes said.

The State Fire Marshal’s Office returned the building to its owner Wednesday evening, but it plans to continue its investigation today by interviewing tenants and other witnesses.

According to Grimes, several tenants reported that a couple had been fighting in the fourth-floor apartment throughout the day and evening, then left the building shortly before the fire started to spread.

Two people were renting the apartment, Grimes said. He confirmed that one of them was in the hospital when the fire broke out, and the other, Rebecca Miller, was home at the time.

Miller has been questioned by police, but Grimes said he could not release details of the interview while the investigation was continuing.

Tenants were allowed to return to the building Wednesday to retrieve their property. At dusk, several people were still lugging furniture, children’s toys and laundry baskets full of clothes from their apartments.

Jason Melendez of New York was visiting his wife and two children, who lived in another apartment on the fourth floor. He was able to salvage a box of photographs. Nearly everything else was destroyed.

“Now what are they going to do?” he said. “This is crazy.”

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