Gov. Janet Mills has ordered both U.S. and state flags lowered this Friday in honor of the firefighter killed during last week’s explosion at a Searsmont lumber mill.
Funeral services have been scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday at Veracity Chapel in Morrill for 27-year-old Andrew Cross, a member of that town’s volunteer department.
“My heart goes out to the family, friends and colleagues of Andrew Cross,” Mills said in a statement. “He died a hero.”
A fire broke out about 10:05 a.m. Friday at the Robbins Lumber campus off Route 131 in an area where wood shavings are packed in plastic bags. That blaze then spread to a silo filled with sawdust that exploded about 11 a.m. as firefighters stood nearby.
That prompted nearly two dozen fire departments to scramble to the scene as crews tried to contain the blaze and tended to the nearly dozen wounded.
Cross was killed. Eight people, including owners Jim Robbins and Alden Robbins and family member Lily Robbins, remain hospitalized, officials said this week. The Robbinses are recovering in the burn unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the company revealed Monday morning.
A joint federal-state investigation is underway to determine the cause of the fire and explosion. That investigation, which is expected to take several more days, has been hampered by recent high winds.
