PARIS — People in three Oxford County towns were unable to make emergency calls over land lines for several hours Monday afternoon as the result of an accidental fire caused by a member of the Fire Department, officials said Tuesday. 

Residents in Bethel, Bryant Pond and Newry dialing 911 over home phones Monday were met with busy signals or endless ringing between noon and 6 p.m., said James Miclon, director for the Oxford County Regional Communication Center. 

Miclon, who said he received notification of the problem from telephone companies and was working to confirm the findings, said officials knew of no problems caused by the disruption. 

“We did pretty well,” he said. “We were on the phone numerous times. All the players came together on our end and we were able to solve it.”  

Officials suspected that cellphone usage, which operates off fiber-optic cables, was also disrupted, Miclon said.

He said he received a call from FairPoint Communications and Oxford Networks shortly after the fire broke out around noon that a major line stretching from Paris to West Paris and beyond had been compromised. State authorities were notified of the issue.

While neighbors with the same local telephone prefix could call each other, they were isolated from making calls outside their towns. There was also some brief interference with numbers beginning with “743,” primarily in Norway and Paris. 

West Paris, just a few miles from the fire, was not affected. 

Miclon said they considered deploying a backup communications trailer that functions as a dispatch center in miniature, but canceled it after the telephone companies restored service.

Telephone lines from High Street in Paris to neighboring towns were melted after a controlled fire to destroy a demolished barn owned by Willie Buffington, Paris’ deputy fire chief, spread from the debris pile and ignited a nearby house. Neither were occupied and no one was injured.  

Fire Chief Brad Frost said the Maine Forest Service is investigating the fire. Among other requirements, permits mandate fires be placed 50 feet from other structures; Buffington said his fire was 10 feet away. 

Frost said the Fire Department has the authority to bill people to cover the cost of a fire, though it rarely does. 

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