The newspaper doesn’t like to cover fire stories as they sometimes involve the loss of life. Luckily, this past Sunday’s tragic fire didn’t involve the loss of life, but the loss of a home to longtime resident Vi Lee and the tenants of her house, the Bill and Sherri Morton family.

Area firefighters worked hard to contain the fire to the immediate area and, after about six hours, had the fire out. Also, the Red Cross showed up to help with any arrangements needed by Lee and the Mortons.

The network of friends and family of helping those displaced was set in motion almost immediately. A GoFundMe page for the Mortons was set up by Mandy Scott, Jennie Mitchell notified us of the upcoming Community Lunch (Oct. 17) and how proceeds and donations from the event will help Lee and the Mortons with the purchase of belongings lost in the fire, and we heard mention of other behind the scenes work by other people who set up a bank account for the fire victims, made calls of support and more.

The Boothbay region is noted for its kindness when tragedy strikes and this is another example of it. We hope the trend continues.

This was supposed to be a fun-filled weekend with the Fall Foliage Festival and Damariscotta Pumpkinfest being held under sunny skies. But with the sky filled with smoke and fire on Beath Road in Boothbay Harbor for several hours, the fun was darkened by this tragedy.

We’re hoping that Vi Lee and the Morton family can get over their losses as soon as possible and that the community will continue to support them.