PERU – Two vacant building fires of suspicious origin in Peru this year has sparked an alarm in Fire Chief Bill Hussey.
Hussey said Friday morning that the first fire occurred in May at the two-story Albert Bukoveckas house on Valley Road, a farmhouse built in the 1800s. Hussey said Bukoveckas died two weeks before the fire.
On Friday he was at the scene of another fire that destroyed a vacant farmhouse built in the 1850s at 717 Dickvale Road.
“This is the second vacant house fire we’ve had this year, so we are concerned,” Hussey said. “We don’t want to see the trend continue.”
Senior fire marshal investigator Rick Shepard of Casco had yet to contact Hussey about the cause of Friday morning’s fire, which destroyed the home of Dwayne and Millie Childs, said Hussey’s wife, Kathy, on Monday night.
Hussey said that fire, which was reported at 3:50 a.m., was suspicious because, although there was power to the building, everything was shut off inside. No one had lived there since September.
Regarding the Bukoveckas house, senior fire marshal investigator Dan Roy said Friday that there was too much fire damage to determine what caused the Valley Road home fire.
Roy and Hussey also mentioned another vacant building that burned in Mexico last month, and one in Roxbury, but stopped short of speculating that an arsonist might be involved.
Comments are no longer available on this story