WINCHENDON, Mass. — Firefighters in Winchendon had a busy start to the day, spending hours battling a blaze at a vacant mill in town.
Winchendon Fire Chief Thomas Smith said his department received multiple calls for a fire on Lincoln Avenue Extension just before 3:40 Friday morning.
Smith said firefighters arrived on scene to find a three-story empty mill building fully engulfed in flames.
Tod Richards, who lives nearby, said his lights started flickering shortly after he woke up.
“Went to look out the door, and I looked over, and there’s a big fire sitting over here at the building,” Richards said. “It’s pretty crazy.”
Four homes nearby on Brown Street had to be evacuated due to the fire.
Those homes suffered minor external damage.
“It was scary, obviously, but I was in fight-or-flight mode and just had to get out of there,” neighbor Harley Quigley said.
The fire also knocked out power to the area.
“Saw the transformer blow up and cut power immediately,” Quigley said. “It was interesting.”
At one point, Chief Smith said embers made their way across the street.
Luckily, no one was injured, but Smith said there were some challenges for firefighters.
“Manpower is always a challenge,” Smith said. “It’s a dead-end street, you can’t drive through, so we couldn’t bring apparatus in from that side.”
Crews were only able to utilize the south side of Lincoln Ave. Ext.
According to Smith, the mill has been vacant for years, but it used to be home to the former White Mountain Freezer Company, which produced old-fashioned ice cream makers.
The cause of the fire is now under investigation.
No word on when power will be restored to the area.
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