LISBON – A couple escaped injury when they fled their burning mobile home Tuesday morning. At least one of their nine cats wasn’t as lucky.
The couple lost all of their belongings. The home was uninsured, a relative said.
Firefighters doused the blaze at 5 Abenaki Drive after it burned through the porch and gutted the rest of the home.
Edith Maberry smelled smoke shortly before 10 a.m., said her granddaughter, Shannon Yergin of Lisbon Falls. The homeowner called to her husband, Richard, “Do you smell something burning?”
He opened the door to the front porch and saw flames, Yergin said. Before leaving the rear of the home, he broke a window as an escape route for the cats, she said. Her grandmother went out the front door by way of the porch where the heat singed her hair, said Lisbon Fire Chief P. Sean Galipeau. The couple had left an electric quartz heater on the porch too close to piles of newspapers, he said.
One cat was rushed to a veterinarian, but later died, Yergin said. A white cat named Angel was found hiding under a tarp-covered trailer in the back yard. Yergin coaxed the cat out. It was taken to safety. The other seven cats had not been found by mid-afternoon, Galipeau said.
The couple was expected to stay with relatives, Yergin said.
The siding on the front of a shed behind the home melted, but the shed remained intact. The trunk and bumper of a silver Ford Taurus sedan parked in the driveway were blackened by the blaze.
A neighbor called the fire department, Galipeau said. Nearly an hour later, firefighters still were battling flames in an effort to enter the home.
“It really got a jump on us,” Galipeau said, noting the trailer was 34 years old.
Lisbon Fire Department sent three engines and a tanker to the scene. A combination ladder and pumper from Lewiston and an engine from Sabattus also responded.
The home was located in Worumbo Estates, a private trailer park.
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