FRYEBURG — State fire investigators Friday will continue looking into the cause of a fire that destroyed the former Saunders Brothers wood mill Thursday afternoon.

No one was reported hurt in the conflagration that began around 11:45 a.m. at the complex of six buildings at 54 Fair St., about a quarter of a mile from the town center.

Fryeburg Fire Chief Ozzie Sheaff said Thursday night that he does not believe the fire was intentionally set.

The plant, most recently known as Forest Industries, was insured, owner Louise Jonaitis of Hanover said. It was put on the market last month for $310,000. The contents of the buildings were auctioned off two weeks ago, but some materials remained inside. The plant was once considered one of the world’s largest rolling-pin producers.

Jonaitis bought both Saunders mills in Fryeburg and Greenwood and started up production with about 50 employees at the Greenwood facility. She is also the owner of the former Moosehead Manufacturing Co. in Monson.

Jonaitis said she was having lunch with U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s aide Dianne Jackson in Norway when she received word of the fire.

“I guess I couldn’t imagine it. I drove right over there. I was glad everyone was safe,” she said.

About 70 firefighters from nine towns fought the stubborn blaze in the main production building where there were still miscellaneous wood products. Thick black smoke bellowed into the sky for the first two hours as the fire struck the tar roof of the main building.

Scheaff said the main building was L-shaped with only a few wooden partition walls that offered no protection from the spreading flames. “It was so far ahead of us when we got there,” he said.

“I heard people hollering,” said a man, who declined to identify himself except to say he was in the boiler room picking up items he bought at the recent equipment auction. Police said he is a businessman from Oxford. Officials say three or four people may have been at the site when the fire started.

“It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know I should get out of there,” said the man who grabbed everything he could carry and ran out of the boiler room, which he said was initially insulated from the adjoining mill room where flames erupted.

The complex lies on 17 acres is owned by Watershed LLC, according to Town Clerk Theresa Shaw. Its principal, Jonaitis, owes $21,145 in taxes to the town of Fryeburg for 2010 and 2011, but had been working out a financial repayment plan with the town.

Shaw said the 15 acres is assessed at $228,400 and the six buildings combined are assessed at $537,860. The square footage of the buildings was not available.

Jonaitis said she purchased the complex, which included several new buildings, in May of 2009 for $200,000 simply because it was “a good real estate deal.” She said parts of it have been on the market on and off since she purchased it.

Bill Reilly, a real estate agent for ReMax, which was selling the property for Jonaitis, said she originally put two acres and two buildings up for sale for $150,000 and had planned to reopen a pellet mill in the remaining buildings. But in November, when neither the sale nor the reopening of the mill happened, she placed the entire complex on the market for $310,000.

“I’ll just withdraw the listing. There’s really nothing to sell,” Reilly said.

John Hastings of Fryeburg, owner of CH Acquisitions LLC and D& D Necessary Homes, across the street from the former mill, said he was at lunch when the fire erupted but neither of his two buildings at 37 and 31 Fair St. were damaged.

Linsey McFarlin, a nearby neighbor said she came to the head of Fair Street to watch what she described as “very, very very high flames and black smoke,” when she heard the fire engines responding to the scene.

Laurie Henry, a 16-year employee of the former mill, said she was able to see the smoke 10 miles away from her home in Denmark. She called her boyfriend at the Greenwood plant about two hours after the fire started and discovered that no one at that plant was aware of the fire.

Henry, who said she did a little bit of everything at the old mill, said it employed 60 people at its height before it closed in 2008. “There were three or four of us left in the whole mill,” she said when the plant closed. Six generations of her family worked at the mill, including her son Allan Reed of Brownfield who stood by her side watching the flames consume the buildings.

“It is sad,” she said of the loss.

The Saunders Brothers began operating a dowel plant in the early 1900s using white and yellow birch. The operation expanded from Waterford to Fryeburg and Greenwood. The latter was purchased at auction and reopened by Jonaitis and a partner this year.

Fire crews from Lovell, Brownfield, Bridgton, Denmark, Sebago, Saco Valley and Center Conway and East Conway, N.H., joined Fryeburg firefighters in extinguishing the flames. Sheaff praised the firefighters for their teamwork.

Fryeburg firefighters were expected to be monitoring the scene for hot spots.

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