Industry insiders surprised by news of fire
Forest industry watchers were surprised Friday as news unfolded of a fire at a Robbins Lumber facility in Searsmont.
Still owned by the same family that founded it on the St. George River in 1881, Robbins Lumber is well respected and well known across the forest industry, said Eric Kingsley, an industry analyst at Innovative Natural Resource Solutions in Portland.
“They’re a really well-run company,” he said. “They’ve been a part of Midcoast Maine’s forest industry since forever.”
Robbins Lumber is one of the biggest white pine mills in the country and, according to a 2024 MaineBiz story, employs about 225 people. In 2011, the governor’s office heralded the Robbinses for their forest stewardship, awarding them a Maine Department of Conservation award. The department’s commissioner called them “an iconic Maine family.”
In 2024, another fire at the company’s facility took place in a control room for the kilns, according to multiple news reports. It was contained and didn’t result in any injuries. The PenBay Pilot reported that the Searsport Fire Department had a roster of 14 volunteers, many of whom were out in the woods hunting when the call came in and returned to Robbins Lumber to respond.
Robbins Lumber has had one workplace safety incident investigated by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the past decade. It happened in 2025, and the company was fined $5,427. The details of the incident are not immediately clear, but according to OSHA records, it appeared to involve a lack of regular inspections of procedures in the planer facility.
