HALLOWELL -- The fire that destroyed a vacant house, cutting off phone, cable and Internet service to thousands in central Maine earlier this week, was arson, a Maine State Fire Marshal's office investigator confirmed Thursday.

Tuesday's early-morning fire at 2 Second St., near the Augusta-Hallowell city line, had an "intentional human element," senior investigator Scott Richardson said. Authorities have yet to make an arrest.

"There's leads we're following up on, but these things take time," he said. "Any new information that anybody saw certainly helps."

Richardson asked anyone who was in the area and might have witnessed suspicious activity at the time of the blaze to call the fire marshal's arson hotline at 1-(888) 870-6162.

"We're not finding anything in the area," he said.

Tuesday's fire, reported to police at 3:05 a.m., began inside the house, Richardson said. Samples collected from the fire are undergoing tests at a state crime laboratory, he said.

The blaze burned through fiber optic cables owned by Time Warner Cable and FairPoint Communications, and crews from both companies scrambled much of Tuesday morning to restore service.

The incident cut off television service to 17,000 Time Warner customers, stopped Internet service for 10,000 subscribers and cut 4,000 customers' telephone service until 10 a.m. Tuesday. The service outages affected subscribers in 26 towns in Franklin, Kennebec, Penobscot and Somerset counties.

The FairPoint outages were scattered among customers in Farmingdale and Hallowell until crews installed a replacement cable. Service returned to those customers around noon.

The destroyed house belonged to Margaret Tripp, of Brunswick, according to Hallowell assessment records. She had listed the property for sale with Vallee Real Estate for $70,000.

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com