Fires, Floods and Disasters

Across the towns of northern Maine, natural emergencies have long tested local resolve. When exploring fires, floods and disasters in Aroostook County, the memory of water is especially strong in Fort Kent and Fort Fairfield. In late April and early May 2008, heavy rain and record snowmelt sent the St. John River to 30.17 feet and the Fish River to 13.93 feet, overtopping local levees, inundating over 100 homes, and forcing more than 600 people to evacuate. Town Manager Donald Guimond directed emergency measures and mandatory evacuations, while Public Works Director Tony Theriault led work on a 4-foot-high, nearly 800-foot dirt berm to reinforce the levee, and Police Chief Kenneth Michaud monitored town safety and the International Bridge to Clair, New Brunswick, after high water touched its lower steel superstructure. Years earlier, mid-April 1994 brought rapid snowmelt and Aroostook River ice jams that submerged Main Street in Fort Fairfield, leading the town to relocate 48 flood-prone homes and construct a 2,823-foot dike and I-wall with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Fire has shaped the county's downtown streetscapes just as profoundly. On May 17, 1902, a blaze sparked in a coal bin behind the Fogg Building on Main Street in Houlton, where shifting winds swept the flames through 111 buildings, leveling 20 business blocks, three churches, and 75 houses. Houlton suffered another loss on January 13, 1958, when an early-morning fire consumed the wooden St. Mary's Catholic Church on Main Street as firefighters contended with frozen hose lines. Presque Isle experienced major downtown destruction as well, losing 19 buildings in May 1884, the Presque Isle House Hotel and Perry Opera House in 1900, and 100 buildings across 40 acres during dry, windy conditions in June 1909. Caribou similarly saw its downtown burn in 1890, lost its covered bridge across the Aroostook River to fire in 1891, and witnessed the destruction of the historic Vaughan House hotel on New Year's Day in 1954.

Each crisis spurred stronger defenses and dedicated municipal service. Presque Isle incorporated a village fire department in 1885 and later built a brick fire station at Second and Church Streets in 1912. Caribou established its volunteer department on March 4, 1890, under Chief Herschel D. Collins, who helped outfit the town with motorized equipment. Caribou went on to acquire its 1922 American LaFrance pumper, 'Old Engine One'—which famously pumped water for seven days from Collins Pond after a May 1923 flood crippled town pumps—before acquiring a Reo pumper under Chief Murray Mockler in 1937 and appointing Donald E. Woods as its first full-time fire chief in 1950. Today, local heritage centers preserve these moments, from the Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum housed in the White Memorial Building on land cleared by the 1902 Houlton fire, to the Caribou Public Library archives, the Presque Isle Historical Society, and the river gauges still monitoring the waters in Fort Kent.