Great Fires of 1947 - Modern Evidence of The Great Fires

Modern Evidence of The Great Fires

Even today evidence exists of the Great Fires that swept through York County. In Waterboro, Shapleigh and Lyman, where the devastation was great, forests of small, undesirable pine trees grow en masse where great forests stood before the fires. One would notice on visits to these communities that homes within them lack in historical significance, the oldest homes of which were built in the late 1940s. Most historic farms and homes built before 1947 in these communities were destroyed.

In the late 1980s, to commemorate the Great Fires of 1947, the State of Maine developed signs for each community where the fires burned, detailing the effect the fires had on those communities. Signs still stand today in many communities, including Shapleigh at the Ross Corner Fire Department on Ross Corner Road and North Kennebunkport (Arundel) at the Central Fire Station and Town Hall on Limerick Road.

Many people fought to save their homes. In a book published in 1979, Joyce Butler wrote about the Great Fires of 1947 in Wildfire Loose: The Week Maine Burned:

Juanita and Franklin Spofford lived on the Granite Point Road across Horseshoe Cove from Fortunes Rocks. The Spoffords wet down their house with a garden hose until the pressure failed. Then they filled buckets and tubs and set them around the house. As burning debris carried by the wind fell in the grass, setting it afire, they wet brooms in the buckets and beat the flames out. Bushes beside the garage caught fire. The house across the street and others on Granite Point Road burned, but the Spoffords' did aswell.