The dairy barn at Flaggy Meadow Farm in Gorham was destroyed in a fire Tuesday. Contributed / Photo by Sara Mower
A three-alarm fire Tuesday night destroyed the dairy barn at the historic Flaggy Meadow Farm in Gorham, but two homes, a milk room and a garage were saved.
“It’s a major loss,” Gorham Fire Chief Ken Fickett said Wednesday.
Dairy farmer Walter Young is “pretty devastated,” Fickett said. “He’s lost his livelihood.”
Most of the cattle were in a pasture at the 200-year-old farm at time, Young said Wednesday, but he thinks three or four may have been lost in the fire. Lee Wormell trucked 36 of the cows to his farm in Cumberland for milking and the others were taken to Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, Wormell said Wednesday.
Fickett said firefighters rescued four or five animals and one that ran back into the fire before being corralled the second time.
Firefighters from several towns battled the blaze on Flaggy Meadow Road, which started on the left side of the barn, Fickett said. Some 5,500 bales of hay were stored in the building.
Gorham Public Works provided an excavator and Gorham Sand & Gravel arrived with equipment at 2 a.m. to help move debris so firefighters could extinguish the blaze.
Sara Mower and her husband, Cody, live across the street from the Flaggy Meadow Farm. Cody Mower tried to help move cattle out of the burning barn.
“The whole barn is gone. It’s collapsed,” Mower told the Portland Press Herald. “It’s just devastating.”
There were still some hot spots at the scene Wednesday morning and investigators with the state fire marshal’s office planned to return to the scene Thursday, Fickett said.
Fickett said he hopes the community will step up with a barn raising. The history of the farm community in Gorham is they will help, Fickett said.
Firefighters from several neighboring towns, including Westbrook, Windham, Buxton, Standish and Gray, provided mutual aid.
The Portland Press Herald contributed to this report.
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