A fire on Butler Street in Sanford, Maine, on Wednesday afternoon killed two dogs, damaged multiple apartments with heavy smoke and displaced five families, city officials said. No people were reported hurt.

The Sanford Fire Department responded to the blaze at roughly 1:30 p.m., encountering “lots of smoke coming from an apartment building,” according to a department statement. Fire crews moved quickly to evacuate residents, extinguish the fire and conduct safety checks of affected units. Officials said several apartments sustained significant smoke damage while firefighters completed inspections to assess both smoke and structural impacts.

Firefighters extinguished the flames and then swept the building. Two dogs were discovered dead at the scene; the department said those animals have been counted among the total animals lost in the incident. Officials did not report any human injuries, and all evacuated residents were accounted for at the scene before they were assisted with next steps by local responders.

Sanford Fire Department personnel led the response and remain on site as part of an ongoing origin-and-cause investigation. Investigators typically process the scene methodically — documenting fire patterns, interviewing witnesses and coordinating with building inspectors — and city officials said crews were taking those standard follow-up steps. The department also coordinated with building occupants and municipal inspectors to determine the extent of damage and to advise residents on when units might be reoccupied.

The immediate human toll did not include physical injuries, but the displacement of families underscores the broader consequences of residential fires. Local resources are available to assist households forced from their homes. Families displaced by fires in Sanford can seek emergency shelter and housing assistance through the York County Shelter Programs’ family shelter and related services, as well as coordinated support from the Sanford Homeless Task Force and the city’s Housing Navigation Team, which help connect affected households with temporary accommodations and recovery services. The city also pointed residents to Sanfordmeconnects for additional information on local homelessness and housing supports.

City and fire officials reiterated that the investigation remains active. While the department did not immediately identify a cause, officials noted that common causes of house fires nationwide include cooking — especially unattended cooking — heating equipment such as space heaters, unintentional or careless actions, and electrical malfunctions. To prevent these fires, experts advise residents, among other measures, never to leave cooking unattended.

The loss of pets in residential blazes is a recurring but undercounted aspect of such events. There are no official national statistics on the exact percentage of house fires that result in pet fatalities, but estimates from veterinary and fire-safety sources suggest that tens of thousands of pets — roughly 40,000 to 150,000 animals — die in U.S. residential fires each year, mostly from smoke inhalation. Animal welfare and emergency-response organizations track these losses as part of broader efforts to understand and mitigate the secondary impacts of house fires on households.

Sanford officials said they will provide further updates as the investigation proceeds and as inspectors complete assessments of the building’s habitability. In the meantime, the Sanford Fire Department thanked responding crews and partner agencies for their work and urged residents to follow any official guidance about reentry and recovery. For broader context on how fires affect pets and people, reporting and studies such as Hazards’ tracking of similar incidents offer detailed examinations of animal and household impacts.

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Original reporting: view the original article.