Explosion in Farmington, Maine, Kills Firefighter and Injures 6 Others

An explosion on Monday morning killed one firefighter and injured six other people at an office building for an organization that serves people with disabilities in Farmington, Me., about 70 miles west of Bangor, a town official said.

The official, Scott Landry, a selectman in Farmington, said the building housed staff members for the organization, Life Enrichment Advancing People, or LEAP. No clients were in the building, which had recently finished being constructed, he said.

He said the group’s maintenance man, Larry Lord, had smelled propane in the basement, evacuated the building and called the fire department. At full capacity, the building would have had about 20 people inside, Mr. Landry said.

“Larry really saved a lot of lives,” Mr. Landry said. “If he hadn’t taken care of things in the basement, this could have been a lot worse.”

Mr. Landry was unsure how many people had been evacuated. He said the building had replaced an older office building next door.

The explosion, which demolished the building, happened while Mr. Lord and firefighters were in the basement, said Mr. Landry, who serves on the board of the organization, which has about 200 employees. Multiple homes in the area were damaged, the police said.

Mr. Landry estimated the building had a 2,500-gallon propane tank and added that the building did not have natural gas service.

He said one firefighter had been killed and Mr. Lord had been taken by a medical helicopter to a Boston hospital with burns.

In all, four firefighters, one LEAP employee and one employee of NorthStar, an ambulance service, were injured, the Farmington Police Department said.

A spokeswoman for Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington said that its emergency department had received seven patients in total and that six had been transferred elsewhere. Two were taken to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, three went to Maine Medical Center in Portland, and one was taken to Mass General in Boston.

On Monday afternoon, town officials said an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the explosion, which happened at 313 Farmington Falls Road after the fire department responded to the report of a “gas smell.”

Gov. Janet Mills, who is from the town, visited the blast site on Monday and ordered flags be flown at half-staff through Sept. 18.

“Farmington is a strong, close-knit and resilient community, of which I am proud to be a part,” she said on Twitter. “On this tragic day, I ask the people of Maine to join with me in offering our thoughts and prayers to the people of Franklin County and our deepest gratitude to our first responders.”

In a Facebook message, LEAP Communities also commended the heroic efforts of emergency responders, staff members and neighbors who “saved additional lives.”

Scenes of the blast, and its fallout, circulated on social media as residents grappled with what had happened in Farmington, which has a population of about 7,760, according to the 2010 census.

Stephen Millett, the superintendent of the wastewater treatment plant in Farmington, said he had been in the public works building about half a mile away when the explosion occurred around 8:10 a.m.

“Things were rattling around pretty good in the garage,” he said, adding that objects fell off shelves. “People came out and they thought it was an earthquake.”

He said that he could see the plume of smoke and that three or four neighboring communities had lost power after the explosion.