Lowell blaze displaces 11
Unattended cooking thought to be the cause
LOWELL » A two-alarm fire inside an apartment building in the city’s Centralville neighborhood on Saturday afternoon destroyed an apartment and displaced 11 people.
No one was injured in the blaze, which Lowell Deputy Fire Chief Tom Gilligan said remains under investigation.
“Right now they’re looking at unattended cooking,” Gilligan said. “But they are still investigating it.”
Gilligan said firefighters arrived shortly before 3 p.m. to find “fire blowing out the rear window” of 35. W. Tenth St. The fire was extinguished shortly after firefighters arrived on scene, he said.
The apartment building is made up of six attached two-story units. Gilligan described the damage done to 35 W. Tenth St. as “extensive,” adding that portion of the building is “a total loss.”
Gilligan said there was slight smoke damage to the neighboring apartment, 33 W. Tenth St., but the remaining four apartments were unharmed.
According to Shad Ahmed, the deputy director of the city’s Emergency Management Office, there were two families displaced, totaling 11 people. The American Red Cross was called to the scene to help those affected.
Bridge Street was closed to traffic, between West Tenth and Eighth streets, until approximately 5:20 p.m. Firefighters remained on scene until that time looking for any lingering flames.
“It’s old construction, so we had to be careful,” Gilligan said. “You got to look in every corner and every crevice to make sure it’s out, so it took awhile.”
The heavy emergency response brought many people out of their homes.
Brenda Summers, who lives about a quarter mile away on Bridge Street, said she smelled the smoke inside her home and then saw it out her window rising above the neighborhood. She decided to explore the source.
“This is such a horrible thing to happen to any family,” Summers said while watching the firefighters work.