House fire closes Brunswick's River Road for hours, traffic disrupted

A house fire near 1009 River Road forced Brunswick police to shut down a busy stretch of roadway for hours Tuesday afternoon, disrupting traffic on River Road and spilling delays onto Lisbon Falls Road and Madeline Drive.

Police first announced the closure at about 1:40 p.m., and the fire was reported around 1:45 p.m. as crews from the Brunswick Fire Department, Durham Fire and Rescue and the Topsham Fire Department converged on the scene. Brunswick police asked people to stay away from the 1009 block of River Road while firefighters worked to contain the blaze and keep the area clear for emergency vehicles.

The road closure turned a house fire into a broader neighborhood traffic problem. River Road serves local travel and access to nearby homes, so blocking it cut off a main corridor while fire apparatus moved in and out of the scene. Drivers also faced impacts on Lisbon Falls Road and Madeline Drive, adding to the disruption as police managed detours and kept access open for crews.

Authorities later said the fire had been contained and River Road reopened around 5 p.m., easing the afternoon bottleneck for commuters and nearby residents. As of the initial reports, police had not publicly released a cause for the fire, and no injuries, displacement or property-loss estimate had been reported. For the surrounding neighborhood, the main consequence was a sudden shutdown that lasted most of the afternoon before traffic flow slowly returned to normal.