GORHAM – An early morning fire Monday in a trash bin that evacuated 200 dormitory residents at the Gorham campus of the University of Southern Maine has been ruled arson.
Robert Caswell, a university spokesman, said the office of the Maine Fire Marshal’s Office determined the fire was deliberately set.
Caswell said Daniel Young, who is an investigator with the fire marshal’s office, and police at the University of Southern Maine are probing the incident. Young could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Caswell said exterior dorm doors are locked 24 hours each day with access by a card key. Besides student residents, there was staff on duty in the building, Caswell said.
“In all likelihood, it was someone inside the building,” Caswell said Tuesday.
There were no injuries and everyone was safely evacuated from the half-century-old dorm to the Brooks Student Center. Students had arrived at the dorm on Saturday and Sunday. The fire erupted just hours after many students had checked in. Classes began Tuesday.
Caswell said the fire started at 2:37 a.m. in a trash can in a recycling closet on the third floor of Upton-Hastings Hall. But, the fire activated a sprinkler system nozzle that extinguished the fire before firefighters arrived.
“It doused an area in the immediate vicinity of the closet,” Caswell said.
Gorham’s Deputy Fire Chief Kenneth Fickett said Tuesday that the sprinkler system “saved the day” at the building. “There would have been substantial damage,” Fickett said.
The dorm, built in 1960, did sustain some damage from water that seeped into some dorm rooms and a first floor lounge. But, water damage did not close the building, and, Caswell said, the building re-opened at 5 a.m. Monday.
Caswell said there was no fire or smoke damage outside of the recycling closet.
Fickett said Gorham responded to the fire at the four-story dorm with two ladder trucks, three fire engines, one heavy rescue truck and one ambulance. Fickett estimated the cost of labor for the response at $400-$500.
Caswell said all college dorms in the University of Maine organization have sprinkler systems.
“The bottom line,” Caswell said, “We’re thankful no one was hurt.”
Gorham has been plagued with several arsons this year. Five of six fires between March 27 and April 18 have been ruled as arson and the other deemed suspicious. Those fires in the northerly and westerly areas of the town have baffled authorities and remain under investigation,
After an investigation of a fire at a group home on Green Street in Gorham Village last month, police arrested a suspect. But, police believed that the Green Street fire was unrelated to the earlier arson fires this spring.
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