MONMOUTH – Four Monmouth Academy students were blasted by a ball of flames when aerosol cans exploded in a campfire Thursday night on Norris Point Road.

Fire Chief Andre Poulin said fire and rescue crews treated the teenagers at the scene before they were taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Two of the boys were later moved to Maine Medical Center in Portland.

The victims were not identified. By Friday night, most of the teenagers had been discharged. None of the injuries was considered life-threatening, officials said.

Exactly how the explosion occurred was being investigated by several agencies, including the State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Maine Forestry Department.

According to Poulin, at about 10 p.m. the teenagers were in the yard behind the home where one of them lives.

“They were just kind of hanging out,” Poulin said. “They were sitting around the campfire.”

Poulin described the fire as a small one, not a bonfire. The trouble began, he said, when spray cans became heated by the flames and exploded.

“We’re not quite sure if the cans were in the fire or if they tossed them in,” Poulin said.

When the cans exploded, flames ripped out of the campfire in a ball too fast for the boys to react.

“It sounds like they were enveloped in a wall of fire,” the chief said.

The mother of one of the boys called for help. Fire crews and rescue workers from Monmouth and Winthrop were at the scene minutes later. Crews doused the campfire and treated the teenagers for burns before taking them to the Lewiston hospital.

“They did a real good job doing triage and getting the patients to the hospital real quickly,” Poulin said.

Monmouth police were called to begin an investigation. The main focus of it is to determine how the spray cans got into the campfire. Such pressurized cans are known to explode under the heat of flames.

“They don’t belong in a fire, that’s for sure,” Poulin said.

Victims of flash fires are typically treated for burns and examined for potential shrapnel wounds and smoke inhalation suffered when the heat of a fireball rushes into the lungs.

The nature of the injuries suffered by the teens was not available Friday night.

Poulin said the Forestry Department joined the investigation because a campfire was involved and the Fire Marshal’s Service because of the combustibles that exploded.

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