March 28, 2024
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Fire strikes Gouldsboro convenience store

GOULDSBORO – An early-morning fire tore through a popular Route 1 convenience store Wednesday, turning the blue shingled building into a black, charred mess.

Gouldsboro Fire Chief Alden Tracy said someone driving past the Bear Necessities convenience store at about 1 a.m. used a cell phone to call 911 and report that the business was on fire. Firefighters from the Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor fire departments went to the scene and found the front of the store in flames, Assistant Fire Chief James Souders said.

“It was just rolling out of the front of the store,” he said. Sorrento, Sullivan, Steuben and Hancock fire departments provided mutual aid.

Tracy said the fire was particularly difficult to squelch because the convenience store had been rebuilt so many times over the years that the walls and floorboards were several layers thick.

In all, about 35 firefighters fought the blaze. Some were still at the scene at lunchtime Wednesday, when the fire chief and a representative from the State Fire Marshal’s Office examined the burned-out building.

Tracy said the store was open as usual Tuesday and closed at about 7:30 p.m., the normal closing time. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. He couldn’t say yet whether the circumstances were suspicious.

“It’s too early to tell,” he said.

The convenience store, which is also a sandwich shop and a popular place to get coffee, is one of the last businesses on Route 1 before leaving Hancock County.

A yellow mobile home just a few feet behind the store was undamaged. The residents of the mobile home manage the store, but they were out of town at the time of the fire, Souders said.

The store is owned by Gilbert and Sandra Wallace of Steuben. The Wallaces were at the scene Wednesday but declined to comment about the fire.


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