RANGELEY, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — Investigators still don't know what sparked a fire that nearly destroyed an entire condo complex at Saddleback Mountain.
The mountain was closed in early 2016, but a foundation has since been set up to purchase the land and reopen the resort.
On the Saddleback Mountain Foundation's Facebook page, leader Peter Stein writes, "For me, this just brings greater resolve to get Saddleback open again," while thanking the town's fire department for its work.
Seventy-five firefighters from 15 area towns fought against this blaze through the night.
"The right side condo was completely engulfed in flames, the adjoining was just catching, there were three more condo units exposed and in danger,” said Rangeley’s fire chief Tim Pellerin.
The first problem was getting up the snow covered mountain in the middle of a storm.
"Most of our mutual aid had to travel 50 miles to get here."
From there, the trouble piled up.
"We attempted to hook to the fire hydrant system at saddleback but the hydrant was frozen."
Trucks were called to carry water in, but it froze coming through the hoses. The cold weather also froze the transmission on the fire trucks in pump-mode; not switching back into drive.
"At the end of the fire we had to freewheel the trucks back down the mountain into the parking lot so we could work on them and get them back into the road side"
With nearly everything stacked against them, it only took three hours to save three adjoining condos. Two others are a total loss; one is badly damaged.
"We estimate the damage a little over 850,000."
Because the mountain is closed, no one was in the condos when the fire broke out.
"If there was one good thing that happened yesterday, that was the good thing: the mountain was closed."