TOPSHAM, Maine — Firefighters from a number of area towns continued to battle a significant fire at Grimmel Industries on Monday evening.
The fire at the scrap metal recycling plant, at the site of the former Pejepscot paper mill on the Androscoggin River, was reported shortly before 6 p.m., and by 8 p.m. had drawn crews from nearly 10 communities including Topsham, Brunswick, Lisbon, Freeport and Bath.
Grimmel Industries operates a number of scrap metal recycling plants.
The Topsham site has been plagued with fires. A 1995 fire that caused more than $1 million in damage was determined to be arson.
A July 2004 inferno drew firefighters from 17 departments to a three-alarm fire that destroyed several buildings. Investigators said the flames were so hot that the cause could not be determined, according to the Sun Journal.
And in September 2009, a four-alarm fire at the plant marked the fifth blaze at Grimmel’s Topsham facility in 14 years, The Forecaster reported.
Most recently, the cause of a two-alarm blaze in July 2013 remained undetermined.
