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Two vehicles were destroyed Monday night in the Maine Center for the Arts parking lot after a fire broke out. Around 6:30 p.m. Sgt. Leroy Patterson, a University Public Safety officer, was driving by and witnessed the blaze. He called the Orono Fire Department, who came and extinguished it.
The fire started in a 2002 Ford F-150 pick-up truck parked in the MCA lot near the faculty section. The truck belonged to Daniel J. French, of Minot, who was visiting campus that evening.
The fire then spread to a 2002 Nissan Xterra, parked directly in front of the truck.
According to Henry Vaughan, Orono Fire Marshall, the spread was inevitable. He compared it to “the same principle as a woodstove,” saying that if you have anything combustible within a few feet of a woodstove or something else flamable, the fire will spread. Though there were no witnesses, Vaughan speculated that the fire and heat spread through the plastic bumpers of the two vehicles which were parked close together.
Richard Kent, an assistant professor in the college of human education and development, was the owner of the Nissan that was damaged. “I teach a writing class until 7 p.m. in Shibles [Hall], and when I left class I saw the fire trucks and police cars in MCA Parking. I thought, ‘Oh, someone’s going to have a bad night.’ The closer I moved to where I had parked my truck, the more police, fire personnel and smoke appeared. Both trucks were smoldering when I arrived. Talk about a bad night. The front of the truck [Xterra] is burnt up. It’s probably totaled.”
According to Lt. Paul X. Paradis of Public Safety, “The cause of the fire is due to mechanical failure, possibly due to an electrical problem and is not suspicious in nature.”
Kent said he had invested $1400 into his Xterra over the previous two weeks. “I thought of that money, about having to buy a new vehicle and about the Red Sox game I was missing,” Kent said recalling his initial reaction. “Clearly, it was a bad night all over. I lost my truck and the Sox dropped game three.”
Vaughan estimated damages for both vehicles would total about $30,000 and loss of contents approximately $1000.
