PARIS – Drew Gilmore watched from a command station as flames exploded above a stairwell that collapsed into the burning warehouse from which he and about 15 employees had escaped.

“There was nothing that we could do,” Gilmore said from the command station in the rear of the building Wednesday afternoon.

The president of New England Public Warehouse Logistics on Pine Street estimated that the building contained $10 million in inventory – about 20,000 tons of paper pulp from Canada on its way to Maine mills.

The 187,000-square-foot building serves as headquarters for the company, which has seven depots in the state, Gilmore said.

He said he was in his office when the fire started at about 1 p.m. He and several employees tried to put out the flames with fire extinguishers, but it quickly spread out of control. Smoke alarms and a sprinkler system went off and employees were told to get out, he said.

Cody Pratt, a forklift operator from Paris, said he saw the fire start when a spark hit a stack of shredded paper under a dock where welders were making repairs.

“In a matter of minutes, the whole roof was on fire,” Pratt said.

Nine hours later, the building was still burning.

About 100 firefighters from 20 departments had the blaze contained to the middle of the building as of 10 p.m., said Oxford County EMA Director Scott Parker, who was serving as public information officer at the scene.

“We’re just trying to save as much of the property as we can,” he said, adding that there was extensive structural damage.

He said there were no injuries to anyone involved.

Parker said there were paper products and six railroad cars in the building, but no hazardous materials. Water was being pumped from the Little Androscoggin River behind the warehouse and poured into the expansive warehouse.

Route 26 from the Norway town line to Market Square in Paris was expected to remain closed indefinitely, Parker said. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, which runs next to the warehouse, was also expected to be closed.

Drivers headed north on Route 26 will be directed onto Alpine Street, which is across from Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, then to Elm Hill Road, to Nichols Street and right onto High Street to reach Route 26 at Market Square.

Oxford Hills Middle School on Pine Street was set up as an emergency center to serve food to firefighters, check their conditions and provide cots for rest breaks. The Salvation Army and local businesses were also supplying food.

Classes at the school have been canceled for Thursday, SAD 17 Superintendent Mark Eastman said, adding that he would decide Thursday morning whether to close all district schools.

Roof work

Mark Bancroft of Bancroft Contracting in Paris said Wednesday night that three welders were on the roof putting a decking on when the fire started, but it was unclear whether a spark from one of the torches touched off the blaze.

“None of us can answer that. It defies the laws of gravity,” Bancroft said.

According to Bancroft, the pile of paper where the fire started was next to the 20-foot section of roof the welders were working on and was separated by the roof itself.

“Possibly, a draft from the outside could have drawn a spark inside. We will probably never know,” he said.

Bancroft said his company, which is insured, had worked in the building for more than 20 years and his employees were well aware of the hazards the warehouse posed for them. Fire blankets were draped over the paper and in the area of welding, he said.

“You can’t build a better recipe for a fire waiting to happen. We took extra special care,” Bancroft said.

He said the foreman is responsible for watching for flames. In this case, when he saw the fire start, the welders immediately took action.

“The first thing they did was alert the owners there was a fire and make sure they called 911. The next thing, they tried bravely to put the fire out,” he said. Within moments they knew the fire was out of control and evacuated the building.

By midafternoon, a section of the flat, wooden and rubber-membrane roof had collapsed as firefighters from three counties fought from the ground and from aerial ladders and buckets to bring the blaze under control.

The six-year-old company was insured, Gilmore said.