By Elna Seabrooks
Staff Writer
ORIENT — A week after fire destroyed their post office, Orient residents are still picking up their mail 12 miles away in Danforth, according to Raelene Page, that town’s postmaster. 
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Elna Seabrooks
SMOKEY DEVASTATION — Firefighters from Danforth, Haynesville and Hodgdon struggled unsuccessfully against an early morning blaze that destroyed Bartlett’s Store, the Orient Post Office and a laundry inside the structure last Wednesday. The metal roof and siding, according to fire officials on scene, kept heat and flames in the building making it impossible for them to enter the building with equipment.
Intense heat, flames and billowing smoke inhibited firefighters who battled the devastating fire that destroyed Bartlett’s Store, the Orient Post Office and a laundromat, all housed in the structure on U.S. Route 1, last Wednesday. Eric Young, assistant chief in the Danforth Volunteer Fire Department said “the building was a total loss.”
Danforth resident Sue Frye said she had used the Laundromat and had shopped at the store. “It’s going to be a terrible loss for the community. Even Canadians came over here and shopped there.”
Young said his department got a call around 7:40 a.m. “Danforth immediately requested mutual aid from Hodgdon and Haynesville. Upon arrival, the building was heavily filled with smoke and flames showing in the rear. Several attempts to go into the building were unsuccessful due to the building’s metal structure and shell that retained the heat.”
He added that Danforth, Haynesville and Hodgdon responded to the call with a total of some 30 men and women and six trucks. Water was pumped in from a local brook when the trucks ran out of water. They were on scene for at least five hours and the “metal shell was removed with heavy equipment to aid in the overhaul and cleanup” said Young.
Orient Postmaster Barry Tower said he was in the structure when the fire broke out in the Laundromat where the dryers were running. “The owner hollered to grab a fire extinguisher,” said Tower who added that the fire seemed to be out at one point but sprang up again. Then, the extinguishers “went dry and the smoke was so bad we had to get out.”
Tower says any mail that came in on the day of the fire was not damaged. But, some packages and letters that had not been picked up inside the post office were lost to the fire. 
Contributed Photo/Barry Connelly
AFTERMATH — Barry Connelly said he first saw the fire at 9 a.m. and took this photo before firefighters removed the metal shell with heavy equipment to aid in the overhaul and cleanup. “It struck us how fast your life can change in five hours,” Connelly.
The blaze and overpowering smoke were so intense that firefighters could only keep putting water into the building through the windows, according to Ellsworth Malone, assistant fire chief in Haynesville. However he and Young confirmed that there were no injuries.
Sgt. Timothy York of the Maine Fire Marshall’s office said his department has not been called in to investigate. York said such an action would have to be initiated by a local fire chief and there were no injuries or fatalities. The property had been listed with various brokers over the past year at around $300,000, according to one broker who preferred not being named.
Owner Mark Bartlett could not be reached for a comment on the fire or any plan to rebuild.
For information on mail service contact the Danforth Post Office: 448-2958.
