FREEMAN TOWNSHIP – Arlene Bubier prepared a turkey Friday for a second Thanksgiving dinner and was getting ready for work when someone came to the house and told her smoke was coming from the barn.

Bubier’s husband, Steve, was cooking the turkey in a propane-run turkey fryer in the barn and had just stepped into the house, according to Linda Brackley, the mother of Arlene Bubier.

Strong Fire Chief Scott Dyar said it was the turkey cooker that started the morning fire, but was unable to say if the cooker malfunctioned or specifically how it caused the blaze. The barn and a business it housed were destroyed, and the house was heavily damaged, he said. Firefighters thought they had saved the house, he said, but they ended up having to tear off half the roof on the back side to get at the fire.

The Bubiers were able to escape uninjured and get the family’s dogs out, Brackley said.

She watched firefighters from six towns battle the fire on Foster Hill Road. Brackley’s business, B&B Scrapping and Stamping supplies, was housed in the back part of the barn. It was formerly located on Main Street in Farmington before she moved it to the barn in March. The B&B stands for Brackley and Bubier.

“This place has been in the family for 60 years,” said Brackley, who lives next door. “They’ve done a lot of work to it.”

Her daughter, wrapped in a quilt over her nightgown, had been standing outside until she was coaxed to sit in a running van.

Brackley’s granddaughters, Samantha, 17, and Melinda, 16, students at Mt. Abram High School in Salem Township, were at a store when the fire occurred, Brackley said.

“The girls came back and saw the fire. They were devastated,” she said. “I got my kids – that’s all I care about. They’re my whole world. If anything happened to them I’d go crazy. They help everybody.”

About 45 firefighters from Strong, Kingfield, Phillips, Farmington, New Vineyard and Salem Township responded to the fire call at 10:45 a.m.

They hosed down the structure to keep the fire from spreading into the house, but it got into the eaves and the walls, Dyar said.

Firefighters were able to get tarps on items in the house to protect them, Dyar said, and the majority of those items are salvageable.

Franklin County sheriff’s deputies controlled traffic. NorthStar Emergency Medical Service stood by and provided assistance. Central Maine Power Co. linemen climbed the utility pole in the yard to shut off power.

Dyar said he called the American Red Cross to assist the family. The Bubiers will be staying with family or friends in the coming days.

An excavator was brought in to take down the remainder of the barn, he said.

The family’s insurance adjuster was on the scene for a preliminary look Friday afternoon.

Firefighters were called back to the home later in the day for a flare-up that Dyar said was to be expected in this type of fire.

There were no injuries reported, he said.

“All in all, things went OK,” he said. “Once again mutual aid worked well.”