OAKFIELD, Maine – Fire ripped through the 10-foot mill at Katahdin Forest Products in Oakfield destroying the building on Tuesday, according to owner Dave Gordon.
“The flames were about 40 feet above that tower,” Gordon said, pointing to a tower at the scene on Tuesday afternoon.
When Oakfield Fire Department arrived on scene at about 11 a.m. the building was fully engulfed, according to Oakfield fire department chief Matthew Scott. Sherman, Stacyville, Patten, Houlton and Island Falls fire departments provided mutual aid to Oakfield.
Everyone got out of the mill and there were no injuries, Scott said.
According to president and CEO Gordon, they are pretty sure an electric motor that wouldn’t start upstairs in the mill started the blaze.
“They went down to reset it and that’s where the fire was coming from,” he said. “It must have sparked.”
The 10-foot mill was filled with cedar posts and logs that burn quickly, Scott said.
By 4 p.m. Scott said they had everything “pretty much mopped up,” but three sawdust bins are giving them the most problems and he didn’t know how long they will be there.
Scott said the more you dig into sawdust, the more it keeps burning and containing it is a slow process at best.
Scott said Katahdin Forest Products has their own self-propelled crane and as firefighters kept water going in front of the crane, they were pulling metal off all the wood so they could put it out.
Gordon said their sawdust bins have concrete bottoms and that will help in keeping the fire out, but sawdust bins at mills can burn for a couple years, he said.
The company will not lose production days from the blaze because Gordon will open the Ashland Mill on Thursday which has been closed for over a year, he said.
“We will start sawing at my mill in Ashland,” he said. “I’ve got another local mill that’s going to be sawing for me as well so I don’t think we are going to lose any production at all.”
The insurance covers the contents of the mill that burned but does not cover the building, Gordon said.
“Most insurance companies will no longer insure sawmills unless they are all steel,” he said. “All these were built before they changed their policies except for the last two, they are all steel.”
In 2020 Katahdin Forest products lost another mill at the Oakfield location to fire.
Gordon explained that his father, who started Katahdin Forest Products in 1973, previously worked for a large company with several sawmills. They were equipped with sprinkler systems and they were still averaging one fire every seven years, he said.
“There is so much sawdust, so much fuel everywhere,” he said. “All it takes is a little spark.”
