Mother saw ‘fire shooting out of a window’ in Mattapan
A woman and her son nearly perished in Sunday’s Mattapan fire when she awoke to a noise but then went back to bed.
Georgia Richards said she was asleep at 11 p.m. in her third-floor apartment on Evelyn Street when she felt her bed “jerk,” as though someone had sat on it.
“Then I heard boom, boom, boom,” said Richards, 47. “I went back to bed and watched television. But a little while later, I heard some commotion outside.”
She pulled up her blinds, she said, and, to her horror, saw “fire shooting out of a window” on the floor below.
“I ran to my son and said, ‘Wake up! The house is on fire!’” Richards said.
When the two opened their apartment door, the hallway was filled with smoke, she said, but they managed to make their way downstairs and out to the street.
Two floors below their apartment, Kimberlyn Jones heard a smoke detector go off, followed by someone “running back and forth” on the second floor.
“I looked outside and saw smoke,” said Jones, 18, “so I ran and woke my aunt.”
By the time firefighters arrived, everyone in the triple-decker had made it safely outside, but there was heavy fire on the second-floor porch, said Steve MacDonald, a Boston Fire Department spokesman.
The blaze went to two alarms as flames spread to the top floor and through parts of the roof, MacDonald said.
Ten adults and four children were left homeless, he said, and one firefighter was treated for a shoulder injury.
The cause and point of origin of the blaze, which caused an estimated $500,000 in damage, were still under investigation yesterday, MacDonald said.