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| 8 vehicles destroyed in fire at Maine Turnpike Authority garage in Auburn(Fire Marshall's Office) |
AUBURN, Maine - Millions of dollars' worth of snow removal equipment was destroyed by a fire at a Maine Turnpike Authority maintenance garage.
The fire at the garage off Hackett Road in Auburn started at about 6 p.m. Sunday, and hot spots were still popping up in the smoldering rubble shortly after 5 p.m. Monday. The hotspots prompted Auburn firefighters to return to the scene Monday evening.
The maintenance garage was one of seven along the Maine Turnpike. The Auburn garage could be spotted from Interstate 95 north near mile marker 76.
The fire destroyed the eight-bay garage and the eight vehicles that were inside: four plow trucks, a box truck, a loader, a traffic control truck and a van.
“Two of the plow trucks were brand new. We just got them a couple of months ago,” said MTA interim executive director Peter Merfeld. “Those were over $300,000 apiece.”
Merfeld was at the site of the burned-down garage on Monday while investigators from the Maine Fire Marshal’s Office worked to determine how the fire started.
No one was at the garage when the fire started Sunday night, so investigators will be speaking with the people who were last at the garage to see if equipment was left on.
Merfeld said replacing the equipment that was lost in the fire is no easy task.
“Ordering a truck, it’s a year before you get a build slot and then it takes another year to actually get it,” he said. “But we have spares and we can maintain those for a couple years. The building will take a year (to replace), at least.”
Spare trucks have already been moved to the Auburn site with an active week of weather expected.
“The employees are still working. We still have enough equipment to do the work,” Merfeld said. “It will take a while to replace the building and the equipment, but we’re trying to get that done as fast as possible.”
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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