The intense fire started around 9:30 a.m., and black smoke could be seen from the bridge linking Wiscasset and Edgecomb, about 10 miles away.

"I've never seen smoke like that," said Kristina Ford, who lives near the boatyard. The fire, she said, was "just obviously unstoppable. It was just so huge."

Ron Riml, a retired police officer, said the flames shot 30 feet above the roof as he watched from the top floor of his house several hundred yards away. The scene was "almost like the Hindenburg as the frame and everything went up in flames," he said.

Gov. John Baldacci this afternoon put the property damage from the fire that destroyed the Washburn & Doughty shipyard in East Boothhbay at $30 million.

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