GREENWOOD — Lightning-sparked fire engulfed the Mt. Abram Family Resort’s lodge Wednesday evening leaving the three-story structure heavily damaged.
The fire, which was centralized on third floor of the west wing of the lodge, began around 6 p.m.
“We believe the fire started due to a lightning strike,” Al Curtis, chief of the Greenwood Fire Department, said. “We were the first at the scene and fortunately there was nobody in the 50-year-old lodge at the time of the fire.”
There was a brief scare two hours into the knockdown when a firefighter got an electrical shock while on top of the lodge’s metal roof. The firefighter was immediately tended to by on-scene EMTs and released, obviously shaken but unhurt.
Six fire departments responded including Bethel, Gilead, Greenwood, Newry, Woodstock and West Paris, comprising roughly 50 firefighters at the Mt. Abram blaze. Ladder trucks and tankers found ready sources of water to combat the blaze from Avery Brook in Greenwood, about a mile away, and hoses were laid to a small pond about 300 yards to the east of the structure.
The towering ladders stretched 60 feet into the air above the fire, which jumped from gaping holes in the metal roof above the administrative offices in the lodge’s third floor.
“It is truly heartbreaking to watch this,” Kevin Rosenberg of Bryant Pond, said. The general manager of the resort watched the fire with a cluster of around 80 other spectators, including several Mt. Abram employees standing about 100 yards from the fire.
“It is such a special place and has a place in the hearts of many Mainers who come here every year to ski,” Rosenberg said. He added that he grew up in the shadow of the mountain and learned to ski there.
“Mt. Abram co-owners Matt Hancock, of Hancock Lumber, and Rob Lally, have been alerted of the fire and are enroute,” Rosenberg said.
The flames from the fire were not apparent about 30 minutes into the fire yet heavy smoke billowed from the building.
Geff Inman, chief of the Woodstock Fire Department, summoned a number of volunteers to help empty the ski lodge’s gift shop on the far eastern side of the building farthest away from the fire. A number of spectators, resort employees and firefighters hurriedly rushed in and out of the building grabbing skis, parkas, gloves, snowboards and moving them to an outlying building.
“We’re not sure if the fire started with a strike to the third floor of the lodge,” Curtis said. “It could have started by lightning striking up the mountain entering the building on the southeast side and traveling through electrical lines to the third floor.”
A small reconnaissance group went up the mountain, about 90 minutes into the fire suppression to see if there was any telltale evidence for the second fire ignition.
The fire crews were still on scene late Wednesday night.
“We’ll be up and running for the upcoming ski season,” Rosenberg said. “It will be interesting to see what we’ll find in there tomorrow.”
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