LISBON — A simple battery could have saved the lives of two sisters killed in a morning fire on Summer Street, a public safety official said Friday night.

Fire investigators said the house at 34 Summer St. had no working smoke detectors to alert the family that their house was on fire.

Sisters Natalie Hogan, 11, and Kelsey Hogan, 6, trapped in their bedroom, perished in the 7:30 a.m. blaze.

Their mother, Lorna Hogan, was listed in critical condition at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston where she was being treated for smoke inhalation and burns she suffered trying to rescue her daughters.

Four other children escaped without injury as several passers-by, including a bus driver, stopped and ran to help when they saw the house in flames.

“Three of the children escaped through a back deck,” Maine Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said. “They were helped by either a neighbor or a passer-by.”

The surviving children were being cared for by grandparents.

Fire investigators reported the fire started beneath a bathtub on the second floor. According to McCausland, the source may have been a light fixture or pipes beneath the tub.

Christopher Hogan, Lorna Hogan’s ex-husband, had been using a torch on pipes beneath the tub Thursday night, McCausland said.

Fire marshals said the two girls were trapped in their second-floor bedroom, which is next to the bathroom where the fire began.

Lisbon firefighters and a Lisbon police officer entered the burning house and brought the girls out, but emergency personnel could not revive the sisters, McCausland said.

Seven investigators from the State Fire Marshal’s Office were at the scene throughout the day, working to pinpoint the cause. By 8:30 a.m. the flames were out, but smoke was still streaming from the windows of the second floor. By 11:30 a.m., firefighters had extinguished the blaze. Fire marshals and Lisbon firefighters searched the rubble in the afternoon, looking for clues to the cause.

Lisbon fire Chief P. Sean Galipeau said the fire was reported around 7:30 a.m. by a passer-by.

“When we arrived, there was fire blowing out of the windows in the front, (near the girls’ bedroom),” the chief said. “I had two (firefighters) go in and attack the fire through the front door and up the stairs, and two did a vent-entry search, over and through the window.”

The girls’ room was full of “superheated smoke, ready to flash” into flames, Galipeau said. “At that point, everyone had to bail out of the building. We were able to get a line in.” The water line helped knock down the heat, flames and smoke, allowing firefighters to make a second entry and get the girls, Galipeau said.

The children’s mother “made a valiant effort” to rescue her daughters, Galipeau said. “She tried to do what she could to get up the stairs.”

Knowing two children died is heartbreaking, he said. “My guys are having a hard time right now. We did everything right. This is the first fire fatality in Lisbon since 1957.”

The town has a 60-member volunteer fire department, Town Manager Steve Eldridge said. “They’re extremely well-trained. … I can’t say enough about the chief and how well his people are trained and how well they work together.”

Crisis teams will be working with emergency personnel, Eldridge said. “When you lose a child, it stays with you the rest of your life.”

Lisbon Town Office staff were glum, Eldridge said. “It’s quiet here today. This municipal staff will feel it; the community will. It’s tragic.”

As the mother was being cared for, the children’s father and their grandmother were put in touch with the American Red Cross, Galipeau said.

For fire crews and others, the tragedy was compounded by the fact that it could have been avoided.

According to McCausland, one smoke detector was found in the house. The batteries had been removed.

“It’s heart-breaking for firefighters and fire professionals to know that a $2 set of batteries could have made all the difference,” he said. “If there had been a working smoke detector in the house, we likely wouldn’t be talking right now.”

The family’s yellow Labrador retriever was nervously running around the yard, trying several times to get back into the house as firefighters battled the blaze. The dog was chased away from the burning building and was eventually taken in by a neighbor, Galipeau said.

A second dog died in the blaze, McCausland said.

The family lost everything, officials said. The children were home-schooled and the couple had recently divorced. The father wasn’t living at the home.

Galipeau said the house was empty last summer or the summer before and the Hogans hadn’t lived there very long, but neighbors were friendly with the family. “They were known in the neighborhood,” the chief said.

It was the second house fire in Lisbon this week. On Wednesday afternoon, a house on Angel Street sustained $50,000 damage. No one was injured. According to Galipeau, the Angel Street fire was accidentally caused by improper disposal of smoking materials.

According to McCausland, investigators from the State Fire Marshal’s Office will be back on Summer Street on Saturday, focusing on the fixture and the pipes beneath the tub.

“They have a lot work to do,” he said, “in order to pinpoint which of those two causes started the fire.”

Staff writer Mark LaFlamme contributed to this report.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

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