Chilmark selectmen were outraged to learn this week that the U.S. Coast Guard rejected insurance claims from the Menemsha boathouse fire due to the belief the fire started on the town pier.

“It’s totally infuriating,” selectman and chairman of the board Frank Fenner said at the board’s meeting Tuesday night. “I was right there, I saw where the flames were on the Coast Guard section and there were no flames that I saw on the drive-on dock. For them to infer, that makes me boil.”

“It’s disingenuous to say the least,” selectman Jonathan Mayhew added.

In a letter from Legal Service Command in Norfolk, Va. dated March 8, Coast Guard attorney Susan Steiner informed the town of the claim denial.

“The information indicates that the fire began on the drive-on pier, quickly spreading to a nearby structure, access piers and moored boats,” she writes. “The investigation into this incident could not determine the cause of the fire that damaged the town’s property. Hence, because the claimed damages were not caused by the U.S. Coast Guard’s negligence, the claim is not payable.”

A seven-month-long state and federal investigation concluded a year ago and ruled the cause of the July 2010 fire undetermined. The investigation also ruled the fire did not start in the boathouse but at the connection between the two docks. Mr. Fenner said he reviewed that final report again this week and questioned its integrity after finding his statement to be misrepresented.

“I specifically told these interviewers that when I was coming down the channel with my boat I was specifically looking to see if [commercial fisherman] Wayne Iacono’s boat was alright and see if I could see where the fire was,” said Mr. Fenner. “The fire was definitely inside the [Coast Guard] building . . . I don’t know where this came from.”

“I really question all of these other interviews,” he continued. “Did anybody sign or see a copy of their interview and sign it?”

Selectman Warren Doty was equally disturbed.

“This letter is just infuriating,” he said. “They say the reason they’re not going to pay for any damages is because the fire started on our dock — that’s basically what it says and it’s just not true.”

The selectmen sent a letter in response and requested the Coast Guard retract their statements about the cause of the fire.