MINOT – A house burned flat, a cat perished and traffic was jammed in three towns Wednesday when fire broke out on Woodman Hill Road.

Early indications were that a cooking mishap led to the 3:30 p.m. blaze that burned a couple out of the house they had moved into a few days ago. They were not immediately identified.

There were no reports of injuries, but neighbors said the family cat did not make it out of the home as wind-driven flames moved quickly through the two-story, gambrel-style house at 38 Woodman Hill Road.

Firefighters from roughly a dozen towns battled the blaze and were able to save an attached barn, due in part to a fire wall between the two buildings.

The afternoon fire sent police from several towns scrambling to control traffic around the scene. Nonetheless, commuter traffic on Minot Avenue, Harris Hill Road and surrounding streets in Auburn, Minot and Mechanic Falls got backed up as emergency crews responded and police closed a section of Route 121.

Neighbors said the fire started on the lower floor but quickly engulfed the home.

“The flames started out small but they got big really fast,” said 9-year-old Gordon Ide, who lives across the street from the burned house.

Shortly after, flames spread to the second floor of the house and enveloped the entire building.

“I opened my window and I could hear it burning,” said neighbor Corey Lawson, 9. “I came outside and saw all the smoke. It was crazy.”

Firefighters came from several area towns, including Minot, Poland, Mechanic Falls and Auburn, and began attacking the flames.

“They were trying to put it out and the wind kept picking up really bad,” Lawson said. “It was a really big fire.”

Faith Ide, 12, said she was alerted to the fire when her brother, Gordon, came running.

“He was yelling at me, ‘Fire! Fire!’ I didn’t believe him at first,” she said.

The couple who lived in the house had recently moved in after the house was sold to a Massachusetts man renting it out, according to deputy fire Chief Dean Campbell. He didn’t know the name of the couple living at the house.

“They just moved in there Sunday or Monday,” Ide said. “Most of their stuff is gone and they lost a couple pets.”

She said the couple tried to snuff out the fire on their own but quickly became overwhelmed and called for help.

“They went to get an extinguisher, but then the whole cabinet went up,” she said.

With the house fully engulfed, fire crews began concentrating on saving the attached barn. When the fire was out and the house flattened, the barn was still standing. The extent of damage to it was not immediately known.

Fire crews from Oxford, Norway, Turner and Hebron also assisted in the firefighting effort.