A small fire that broke out in a woodworking shop in the Dana Warp Mill last Thursday caused water damage to several businesses in the building, with the two businesses directly below the fire hardest hit.
While no one was hurt in the fire, the building’s fire alarms did not go off until firefighters manually tripped the alarms to evacuate the building. Some people in the building told firefighters they didn’t hear the alarms. The fire department is looking into the alarm system at the mill, along with mill owner Tim Flannery.
“We had a mishap last week,” Flannery said, explaining that not all of the mill’s fire alarms went off continuously throughout the building. He said there was a section of the building where the alarms were going off intermittently, according to some tenants.
Flannery said he met with the fire department and the city Tuesday morning and is addressing the problem. He said he felt lucky to have the problem brought to his attention without having someone hurt.
“It might be time to upgrade or change (the system),” he said. “It will be done immediately.”
Firefighters from both Westbrook and Gorham responded to the scene because of the size of the mill, said Westbrook Fire Chief Gary Littlefield. The fire was extinguished about an hour after it was reported, but water from two sprinklers flooded the woodworking shop and at least two of the businesses on the floors below it.
Littlefield said the fire broke out in a small work area used by the company Knock on Woodworks to spray wood products with finishes. Workers from Knock on Woodworks reported the fire at around 9:30 a.m., said Littlefield. Direct damage from the fire was contained to a spray booth and a little of the floor, he said.
Fire Inspector Lt. Chuck Jarrett said the cause of the fire was a buildup of flammable vapors ignited by static electricity. Littlefield said it appeared no one was at fault for the fire and the spray booth, which he said was like a metal cabinet, had been installed properly. Littlefield called the fire a “freak accident.”
“It can happen, but it’s not very common,” he said.
Two sprinklers that sprayed water over the fire also contributed to the water damage in the building. Littlefield said the sprinklers gave “more water than needed” to put out the fire. He added that besides what was caused by the excess water, the damage was minor.
Todd Coffin of Mad Gabs Inc., a company located two floors below Knock on Woodworks, said they had water coming down through the ceiling. He said the water was black from the black painted walls of the Bakery Photographic Collective located directly over them.
Bakery Photographic Collective, which is located directly below Knock on Woodworks, had painted the walls black for lighting purposes, Coffin said.
Gabrielle Melchionda, owner of Mad Gabs, said through tears that the floor of her space was covered in two inches of water and it looked as though “someone had the fire hose out and sprayed the whole place.” She said one of her chairs was soaked “like a sponge.”
Littlefield said firefighters manually tripped the fire alarms when they reached the building. He said the fire at that time was contained to the area of the spray booth and wasn’t large enough to activate the alarms. As firefighters were bringing a hose up a ladder, Littlefield said the sprinkler system turned on. Firefighters entered the Knock on Woodworks space via a fire escape that snakes up the side of the building right up to one of the space’s windows, carrying the hose along with them.
Both Coffin and Tricia Boulet of Mad Gabs said they heard the fire trucks before they heard the alarms go off. Boulet said they looked out the window and saw firefighters climbing up the walls, then the alarm. She said they evacuated quickly and then went back into the building an hour later to see the water flooding the place.
Justin Van Soest of the Bakery Photographic Collective wasn’t at the mill during the fire, but was able to get in the same day and see their space. The Collective is in the process of remodeling a 4,000-square-foot space on the floor directly below Knock on Woodworks. Soest said they had put up drywall and painted the walls, but hadn’t brought any of their photography equipment into the space yet, which was a saving grace.
“That would have ruined us,” he said. “It could have been so much worse.”
The group was planning on moving into the space on July 1, but Van Soest said that’ll be pushed back now, but maybe only a week or two. He said there’s some damage to the walls, floor and ceiling they’ll have to fix but the damage was limited to only about a third of the entire space.
The group used dehumidifiers to dry everything out over the weekend. One concern Van Soest has is the floor buckling because of all the water, and he hopes they don’t have to replace it. He said the old wood floor is one of the biggest attractions of the mill space. Van Soest said a great deal of the damage came from sawdust that had come down through the ceiling with the water and was holding moisture.
“I think the mixed-use formula for that building is risky,” he said, referring to the mill’s combination of the industrial and professional businesses.
Knock on Woodworks is about to vacate the building when their lease runs out later in the summer.
“It’s ironic that this would happen now,” Flannery said of the timing of the fire.
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