7-alarm fire rips through Lawrence
A wind-swept seven-alarm fire in Lawrence raced through half a dozen buildings as firefighters from throughout the region jammed into a tight neighborhood, battling the blaze in 90-degree heat.
When the first crews arrived on the scene at 3:45 p.m., flames were already eating through three homes on Bennington Street.
“We immediately started striking alarms,” Lawrence fire Chief Brian Moriarty said.
Bennington Street residents pulled one elderly person from a burning home as firefighters flooded into the dense neighborhood, and emergency crews pulled another person from a home, Moriarty said.
There was no immediate estimate of how many people lost their homes. Hundreds of people flooded the smoke-choked streets to watch scores of firefighters beat back the blaze.
The fire damaged seven buildings, destroying three of them, according to initial estimates. Two firefighters that raced to Lawrence from other communities were transported to area hospitals for heat exhaustion, officials said.
“The heat is a problem, and the water,” Moriarty said, as dozens of firefighters worked behind him. “We needed the water fast, and it took us a while to get lines laid.”
Wind proved to be an issue as gusts invigorated the fire. Crews monitored the neighborhood for hot embers threatening to spread the blaze to other homes.
Moriarty said the neighborhood was “very tight,” packed with multifamily wood-frame houses.
The seven alarms brought trucks and firefighters from Methuen, Peabody and North Andover, as well as Derry, Pelham and Salem in New Hampshire.
The cause of the fire is under investigation by state police assigned to Massachusetts Fire Marshal Peter J. Ostroskey, as well as the Lawrence Fire Department and Lawrence Police Department.
The city opened the nearby Arlington Middle School to shelter people displaced by the fire, let residents speak to investigators and to allow the city to start helping people find new places to live.
Moriarty said the city is lucky no one was seriously injured, lauding his own crews and the others that responded.
“We are very fortunate,” he said. “If this was in the middle of the night it would be a different story.”
Meanwhile, in Boston a threealarm fire racing up the side of a 2 1⁄2- story house on Hazleton Street in Mattapan yesterday morning caused $400,000 in damage, according Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald. There were no injuries. The Red Cross assisted 13 people displaced from two apartments in the building.