DOUG HARLOW
Morning Sentinel

SKOWHEGAN - Two firefighters were treated for minor injuries Tuesday morning after falling eight feet through a floor while fighting a fire on Maple Street.

Skowhegan Fire Capt. Shawn Howard said Capt. Rick Caldwell and call Firefighter Jordan Burdet suffered bruises and sprains, but returned to fighting the fire in an attached barn that had been converted into a family room.

"It was an existing opening in the floor that was unguarded, and they could not see it due to the smoke," Howard said. "It was about two feet into the doorway, so as they were advancing a line into the door they just immediately went down. They continued fighting the fire, even with their injuries."

Howard said the men climbed back into the first floor of the house from a basement ladder and received first aid treatment at the scene.

"The guys made a great stop," Howard said. "They made an aggressive interior attack, faced with a tremendous amount of fire in that two-story barn to keep the fire from spreading into the rest of the structure."

The owners, Chris and Christine Pelletier, were home at 25 Maple St. with their two young children when the smoke detectors woke them up. They called in the fire just after 12:20 a.m. Tuesday.

The family has lived in the house since June. They escaped without injury. The rest of the house was undamaged, Howard said.

"Chris Pelletier went to the back room of the house, saw that there was a fire in the ceiling and attempted to extinguish it with a fire extinguisher," he said. "The fire was much too large at that point for a fire extinguisher, and he quickly realized that and got out of the house himself."

Howard said investigator Scott Richardson from the state Fire Marshal's Office came to the scene and determined that the blaze began in the family room ceiling, from a woodstove pipe.

"The flue pipe goes up through the second story to the roof, and the fire started around that chimney," he said. "There was heat transfer, improper clearance."

More than 30 firefighters from Skowhegan, Norridgewock and Madison fought the blaze. A crew from Canaan covered the Skowhegan fire station.

Howard said the family was able to return to their home Tuesday night.

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December 22, 2010