Basement blaze on Lincoln Street

The Baldwin Fire Department responded to a basement fire at 791 Lincoln St. at around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 11.

“We took hoses off the engine truck and extinguished the fire in about 45 minutes,” said Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Smith, who was the first firefighter on the scene.

Seven family members who were at home when the blaze began all escaped safely. Unfortunately, Smith said, the family dog perished under a bed upstairs.

According to Smith, the cause of the fire was still under investigation as the Herald went to press, but he acknowledged that the department’s “current thinking is that the fire was electrical in origin.”

Although a Florida man, Patrick Pilorge, was convicted of setting fire to the same house and two cars in January of 2007, Smith pointed out that Pilorge is still in jail and added that Thursday’s fire was considered unrelated and “was not regarded as suspicious.”