At 9:46 a.m. on Nov. 11, Boothbay Harbor Fire Department responded to a call from Lincoln County Communications (LCC) about a possible propane incident at Hannaford. After two hours of on-site testing, BHFD and Dead River had not found propane issues at the store, Fire Chief Glenn Tilton said.

Tilton had been headed to the store for some things when the call came in. "When I went in, the manager came out and told me that it was strictly coincidence that there was still an issue,” he said. “When I got there initially, there was a faint, faint smell.”

The first of two Boothbay Harbor fire trucks arrived on the scene within minutes and reported back to the chief the situation required response for a fire alarm. “We shut everything down, called Dead River, and sent our crew into the building and on the roof,” said Tilton adding, “There’d been zero (propane) readings right from the get-go. But Dead River still had to do their thing with leak tests and all."

A second Boothbay Harbor fire truck with a gas detector arrived about an hour after the first. There were four firefighters and two Boothbay Harbor Police Department units on site to help the fire department evacuate everyone from the building and to block the parking lot entrances.

The incident wrapped up at 11:46 a.m. with only Dead River still on site finishing up testing, Tilton said.