Work by Matthew Stone

July 1, 2009

HALLOWELL — An early-morning fire Tuesday that destroyed a vacant house cut off cable, telephone and Internet service to thousands of customers in more than 20 central Maine municipalities.

Firefighters responded to the blaze at 2 Second St., near the Augusta-Hallowell city line, after receiving notice of it at 3:05 a.m.

The fire burned through above-ground cables owned by Time Warner Cable and FairPoint Communications, spokesmen for both companies said.

"Once that fiber burn took place, it impacted connectivity to our Winslow hub," Time Warner spokesman Peter DeWitt said.

As a result, 17,000 Time Warner customers were without television service, 10,000 lacked Internet and 4,000 went without telephone service for much of Tuesday morning, he said.

"We were on the scene and ready to go once the scene was clear," DeWitt said.

Time Warner customers in parts of Augusta, Oakland, Waterville, Winslow, Vassalboro and 21 other towns in Somerset, Franklin, Waldo and Penobscot counties were without service until crews restored it at 10 a.m., according to DeWitt.

"If there's no redundancy, this is the kind of thing that can happen," said Rich Kania, a telecommunications analyst at the Maine Public Utilities Commission. "It was a serious fire and it took down their whole fiber optic cable. When that happens and they don't have another way around it, they're going to have an outage."

For FairPoint customers, the impact was much smaller. The blaze caused only scattered outages in Hallowell and Farmingdale, FairPoint spokesman Jeff Nevins said. The company did not know the exact number of customers affected.

FairPoint crews Tuesday morning replaced approximately 300 feet of fiber with replacement cable from Portland, Nevins said. Service was to be restored to FairPoint customers by noon, he said.

FairPoint took over a telecommunications network last year to which Verizon had been adding redundancy, or backup in case of line failure. Because of that redundancy, the fire's impact on FairPoint customers was much less — and more local — than on Time Warner's customers, Kania said.

"Verizon has been building that kind of architecture with redundancy for many, many years," he said.

The Public Utilities Commission has regulatory oversight of the state's utilities, including FairPoint. However, that oversight doesn't apply to Time Warner, Kania said.

The Maine State Fire Marshal's office plans to look into the fire, senior investigator Scott Richardson said Tuesday. Investigators delayed their examination while Time Warner and FairPoint crews worked at the scene. It was too early Tuesday to pinpoint the cause of the fire or to know whether it was intentional, Richardson said.

"It's wide open right now," he said. "There's nothing jumping out at us at this point."

Margaret Tripp, of Brunswick, owned the property, which the city valued at $86,000, according to Hallowell assessment records.

The house was listed for sale with Vallee Real Estate for $70,000. Vallee agent Scott Baker showed the property to a potential buyer as recently as Saturday.

Tripp was trying to sell the house after taking it over from a family member who fell behind on payments, Baker said.

"I just feel terrible for the lady," he said.

Baker, who firefighters called at 3:30 Tuesday morning after seeing his name on the "for sale" sign, said Tripp had insurance on the property.

"I hope it puts her in a better position rather than hurting her," Baker said.

Workers directed traffic around the scene for much of the morning while the crews were at work.

Matthew Stone — 623-3811, ext. 435
mstone@centralmaine.com