Mostly clear. Low 67F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph..

Mostly clear. Low 67F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.

Firefighters respond to a fire at Kennebec Lumber at 315 Sawmill Road/Route 31 in Greenfield Saturday afternoon.

Firefighters respond to a fire at Kennebec Lumber at 315 Sawmill Road/Route 31 in Greenfield Saturday afternoon.

GREENFIELD — The cause of the four-alarm fire that destroyed the Kennebec Lumber sawmill building in Greenfield on Saturday will likely remain undetermined because the fire left nothing to investigate, Greenfield Fire Chief Richard McQuade said Sunday.

State fire investigators arrived at the scene around 7 p.m. Saturday.

“Being a total loss, it’s hard to determine. So as of right now, there is no cause,” he said.

The fire, however, is not considered suspicious, he said

The fire at 315 Sawmill Road was reported around 1:30 p.m. by an employee of the business across the street, American Steele, McQuade said.

Greenfield Deputy Fire Chief Jeff LaCourse responded first in his personal vehicle to find the lumber business’ sawmill building fully engulfed in heavy fire.

The fire response pulled in about 25 area fire departments to the scene.

“We probably had in excess of 120 firefighters,” he said.

The different departments also brought the needed equipment for the large response, including 11 tanker trucks that hauled an estimated 225,000 gallons of water from Sunset Lake to the scene and Wilton’s ladder truck.

“The Wilton Ladder truck set up at one end of the building where the heaviest fire was,” he said.

The scene was divided into three sectors, said McQuade, who led the middle sector. The Antrim deputy chief led a sector with the Lyndeborough and Milford deputy chiefs leading one as well.

“It was such a big fire you had to have all these different sectors,” McQuade said. “It was a pretty impressive collaborative effort.”

Also aiding the fire’s progress was that the sawmill building had an open floor plan and housed wood, sawdust and bark mulch.

“Just being an open floor plan, the fire can move rapidly from one side of the building to another,” McQuade said.

The sawmill was the main structure and the largest building on the property.

Another challenge was keeping two 1,000-gallon liquid propane tanks cool during the fire, which was accomplished by mutual aid crews.

It was the only building of the business to be affected by the fire, McQuade said.

All of the other buildings — the office and the kiln building — were left unscathed as was the lumber stacked along the road.

“All of the lumber that is there for processing should be fine,” McQuade said.

The sawmill was not in operation on Saturday. And while there was one employee in the office, he didn’t notice the fire until it was too late.

“By the time he was notified of the fire it had progressed pretty far,” McQuade said.

No one was injured in the fire, but four firefighters were treated on scene for dehydration and overheating, with one of them taken to a hospital for further care.

“Dehydration was really hard to stay ahead of yesterday,” McQuade said.

Firefighters remained on scene until 9:30 p.m.

“The bulk of the fire was knocked down in about an hour and a half. The biggest challenge is that this building had a metal roof and when the building collapsed in on itself it collapsed straight down and it made it very hard to reach the areas underneath it,” McQuade said.

The Greenfield Fire Department responded back to the scene of the fire at least three times on Sunday to put out hot spots — at 4 a.m., 2 p.m. and at 5 p.m.

McQuade said he wants to thank the mutual aid responders as well as the people and fire auxiliary members who brought food, water and Gatorade to the scene.

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