TOPSHAM — A late-night blaze that destroyed an abandoned four-unit apartment building on Liberty Circle at the Brunswick Naval Air Station annex was an act of arson, the State Fire Marshal’s Office said Wednesday.

“The house had not been lived in for several years and there was no power to the building,” said Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.” Fire Marshals, assisted by naval personnel, are inspecting this afternoon the dozens of other unoccupied houses nearby, to determine if any other fires may have been set inside those buildings.”

According to a report by the Forecaster newspaper, the blaze was reported around 10 p.m. Tuesday. Emergency crews cleared the scene at about 3:40 a.m. Wednesday.

The fire gutted the apartment house and flattened an adjacent carport and storage building, McCausland said.

The housing was part of the Navy base’s annex, a former U.S. Air Force base built in the 1950s.

Investigators from Naval Criminal Investigative Services joined three Maine Fire Marshal Investigators Wednesday afternoon.

Anyone with information about the fire is asked to call Topsham police at 725-4337 or the State Fire Marshal’s arson hotline at 1-888-870-6162.

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