WEST PARIS — An overnight fire at a Maple Street apartment building has left three families homeless and a cat missing.

Ten people lived in the two-story, multi-unit building, including two children on the second floor, where the fire broke out. Nobody was injured in the blaze, and everyone made it out of the home before fire crews arrived. One cat is still unaccounted for, West Paris Fire Chief Norm St. Pierre said.

“It’s possible the cat ran out,” said St. Pierre, who added that fire crews found no evidence of the animal inside the structure.

St. Pierre said the call came in at 12:42 a.m. for a fire that started somewhere on the second floor near a deck. The cause is unknown at this point, and a member of the Office of the State Fire Marshal was expected to be at the home early Thursday morning to investigate the cause.

“We’re not sure if it’s on the deck or inside,” he said. “There’s a lot of burn damage. The fire marshal will arrive at around 8 this morning.”

Crews from 12 fire departments, West Paris, Paris, Greenwood, Woodstock, Bethel, Rumford, Norway, Poland, Sumner, Buckfield, Oxford and Hebron, responded, as well as ambulances from Tri-Town Rescue and PACE Ambulance.

St. Pierre said it took crews about an hour and a half to put out the blaze once they had arrived at the scene. The first floor sustained water damage from the front to the back of the home and St. Pierre said fire damaged much of the second floor.

“The fire was knocked down at about 2:03 a.m,” St. Pierre said. (The building) is pretty much destroyed.” 

The Red Cross offered assistance to those whom the fire displaced.