Route 1A Fire Ravages Brewer, Maine Antiques Shop

BREWER - Almost all of the antiques in the bright red antique shop located on the Brewer-Holden town line on outer Wilson Street were lost Saturday afternoon in a fire that closed the roadway for several hours."We'll save a little bit, but not much," owner David Mitchell said Sunday as he carried burned items from the structure. "Ninety-five percent is probably gone."

Clerk Jessica Andresen was working in Mitchell's Antiques & Collectibles, located at 990 Wilson St., when she noticed smoke. She called the Fire Department at 3:25 p.m.

"She had noticed some smoke around the furnace and had called the building owner," Brewer Fire Department Lt. Dennis Tinkham said. "She went back and noticed there was smoke around the walls. She then notified the people who lived next door [in an adjoining apartment], and they noticed smoke coming from the roof."

No one was hurt in the fire. The residents of the apartment were displaced for Saturday night but returned on Sunday.

Wilson Street, also known as Route 1A, was closed just before 4 p.m. because of the fire and reopened around 6 p.m.

"That was due to the water supply that we had to establish from the DeBeck Business Park in Holden," Tinkham said Sunday. "It's on the same side of the street, but we had to lay a lot of hose."

Around 1,500 feet of hose was used, the lieutenant said.

Several businesses owned by Mitchell also are located at the site, including a snow removal service, landscaping and garden center.

"That's the last place in Brewer," Tinkham said. "There's also an apartment above the garage where Mitchell's Landscaping stores their equipment."

The big, red, barn-style garage is connected to the antique shop by a breezeway and received minor smoke damage but no fire damage.

Several area fire departments responded to the fire alarm.

"We had 25 Brewer personnel and on-scene crews from Holden, Orrington and Dedham," Tinkham said. "We took basically everything we had there."

The building is considered a complete loss. Fire crews had the fire under control at 4:57 p.m. Saturday.

"Everybody was out when they got there," Tinkham said.

The shop was filled with items Mitchell had spent years collecting.

"There were nautical items, furniture, and all kinds of ship lights," he said. "I had a big collection of ivory and bone and a lot of carvings - stuff you can't replace."

The business's records also were destroyed in the blaze. Mitchell said the antique shop was insured, but he could not estimate the amount of loss on Sunday.