(Lamoine) — If you’re going to have a fire in Lamoine, scheduling it for a Thursday Night at 7:00 would be good timing. That’s when fire department meetings and training occur, and response time is very fast, as Harlan and Leurene Hodgkins found out on June 10th. Three fire trucks and at least 10-firefighters were on scene within 5-minutes of the 9-1-1 call, and found a smoky kitchen. Quick action extinguished a drawer in which a smoldering pot holder had been placed, and damage was limited. That, it turned out, was the only call for the fire department in June, but April and May turned out to be quite busy.

Motor vehicle accidents took up most of the responses for the fire department. The most serious was a single-vehicle accident around midnight on Douglas Highway. A car driven by Charles Sawyer of Shore Road went off Route 184 and crashed into a tree near Orchard Lane. Mr. Sawyer was taken by Lifeflight helicopter to Eastern Maine Medical Center where he was treated for serious injuries. Two accidents involving dump trucks occurred at the intersection of Routes 184 and 204 the same week. Neither resulted in serious injuries.

The fire department responded to a burning dumpster at the Lamoine Transfer Station, a flooded cellar on Seal Point Road, and a couple of false alarms, and provided assistance for Ellsworth and Trenton fire departments during larger calls in those towns.