NORWAY – A fire partly destroyed a house at 88 Brackett Road Sunday morning where a dozen cats and six dog-wolf hybrids lived alone, according to Norway Fire Chief Michael Mann.
“No one was injured, and no one lived there,” Mann said Monday.
The owner of the house, Earl Laidlaw, did not return phone calls Monday.
The fire destroyed about 40 to 45 percent of the three-story house on the road off the back side of Pike’s Hill. None of the animals was hurt in the fire, but one hybrid required an injection after it began having seizures, Mann said.
“He was there,” Mann said of Laidlaw, a lawyer who is known in Oxford Hills as an animal lover.
“He was nervous about the animals, but they were all taken care of by the time we got there,” Mann said.
On Monday afternoon, two shaggy hybrids wandered around a large pile of burned debris, sniffing at the ground and paying little attention to a stranger who walked close by. A pen had been destroyed in the fire, making it easy for the dogs to get free.
Neighbors, who called in the fire, said Laidlaw knew the dogs were loose following the fire.
The animals couldn’t fit in Laidlaw’s own trailer in Paris, so instead inhabited the main house. Laidlaw fed his pets every day, Mann said.
Two trailers sit on the Brackett Road property near the house, but Mann said they were used for storage.
The cats, which could freely enter and exit the house, saved themselves from the fire. Firefighters saw some in the woods while they put out the fire.
Neighbors likely let the dogs out of their pens when they realized the home was burning, Mann said. They also called in to report the 8 a.m. fire, which firefighters had under control by 11 a.m., working in the 12-degree morning air.
Mann said Laidlaw kept his pets warm with infrared heaters, and one of these heat lamps is suspected to have started the fire.
Fire departments from Norway, Paris, Oxford, Otisfield, Waterford, Mechanic Falls, West Paris and Hebron responded to the fire. Water was hauled from Norway Lake.
Some bunches of fake yellow flowers had been planted in front of the house, and on Monday, were poking out of the snow next to a few blackened shoes and other charred items. Mann said Laidlaw used the house as storage, as well as for shelter for his animals, and had insurance on it.
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