ROCKLAND — The homeowners at 86 Mechanic Street weren’t home Tuesday night, but fortunately, their neighbors were.

The owners had been staying in a hotel for the night while their freshly refinished floors dried when, at approximately 9 p.m., July 16, 2024, neighbors became aware of a burning smell in the area and started to investigate. They looked next door and found trash bags on fire in the next driveway, with flames starting to climb up a corner of the vinyl siding. The bags were filled mostly with sawdust, but contained some other materials involved in refinishing floors – thinner and rags.

“Anytime you’ve got sawdust and anything else that’s going to build up heat, that’s a pretty dangerous mix,” said Rockland Fire Chief Chris Whytock. 

The day’s temperatures at reached the upper 80s in the area before cooling back down significantly.

“It probably just sat there, built up some heat and whenever it reached the right ignition temperature, things happen,” he said.

Coincidentally, spontaneous combustion of oil rags is blamed for a garage fire almost directly across the street on Pacific Street in 2017.

While firefighters from Rockland, Rockport, and Camden were en route, the neighbors managed to extinguish the majority of flames with a garden hose. Rockland’s on-duty police officers had been alerted to the 911 call, just prior to the 9:08 p.m. fire department alarm, and were first City officials to respond to the scene and verify that the majority of flames had been subdued.

With most flames extinguished, Camden FD was cancelled, but Rockport continued and staged in and near Snow Marine Park as a precaution.

Rockland firefighters peeled back the siding to look for any defiant sparks and heavily saturated the contents of the trash bags with a couple of gallons of water, according to Whytock.

The interior of the structure was not damaged.

All units left the scene just after 10 p.m.

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com