UPDATE: At approximately 10:30 p.m. responders were called back to the scene. Boothbay Fire Chief Dick Spofford said they had to borrow a town excavator to dismantle the burnt debris so they could extinguish the rest of the fire. Fire crews did not leave the scene until 1 a.m., according to Spofford.

Spofford said a fire marshal will be continuing the investigation January 9 to confirm the cause of the fire.

Original post: At 5:33 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 8, local fire and law enforcement were advised of a structure fire at Vaughn Anthony's barn at 117 Gaecklein Road, off Barters Island Road in Boothbay. No injuries were reported and the fire was contained to the barn.

Anthony said earlier that evening he was taking out ashes from his woodstove, which he transferred to a bucket and placed beneath an overhang, outside behind his barn.

“It was just wood ashes, and there was some embers in it, but I dumped it from one container to another and set it on the ground. It wasn’t close to anything wood. I don’t know how it lit up. I don’t know how it happened,” Anthony said.

Twenty minutes later, he and his wife Joanne heard their dog start barking outside. When Joanne Anthony went to investigate, she saw that the back end of the barn was ablaze, and they called 911. Within 10 minutes Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor and Edgecomb first responders had arrived on the scene.

Anthony said that he kept his riding lawn mower, wood splitter and other gasoline-powered tools behind the back side of his barn.

“I think they exploded. You could hear the bangs,” he said. Anthony said the barn was 17 years old and that the second floor contained many filing cabinets full of papers and old photographs.

“The worst part was all the papers and pictures going back -- 100 years of family history,” Anthony said. “A lot of memories lost.”

Due to the location of the blaze, emergency responders had very little space with which to work their equipment.