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Fire rips through East Boston homes

Five-alarm fire in East Boston

Fire jumping from car to house. Photo by Tammy.

An engine fire in a car parked next to 85 Lexington St. jumped to the house a foot away, causing an eight-alarm conflagration that also damaged two neighboring houses, the Boston Fire Department reports.

Firefighters, who started arriving around 7:20 p.m., were ordered out of the building; BWSC was summoned to try to increase water pressure for all the lines firefighters were aiming at the buildings to try to keep the fire from spreading.

The Red Cross reports about 33 people were displaced. Sacred Heart Church opened its doors as a temporary shelter for 22 of the residents, the American Red Cross reports.

No residents were injured; one firefighter was taken to a local hospital for evaluation.

The fire department estimates total damage of about $750,000, with most of that at 85 Lexington. 89 Lexington had melted siding and smoke and water damage, while 83 Lexington had damage from fire, smoke and water.

Lexington Street fire
The view up Meridian Street. Photo by Kevin Franck.
Lexington Street fire
Neighbors watching. Photo by Stephanie Durfee.
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Comments

Apparently someone on the block parked in front of a hydrant. BFD smashed out the windows (good!) and put the hose through. Looks like the resulting angle of the hose may be affecting water pressure, though. And BFD was already reporting poor water pressure to begin with.

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yeah, I saw that -- the car was a big new BMW, too. Good for him.

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It even made the network news early this morning.

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of the blaze. Too bad it wasn't parked on the street instead of sandwiched between buildings.

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Since my BIL's house basically exploded because of a car leaking gas in an open garage underneath, I've always been very nervous about putting anything in my garage besides bikes and camping gear.

Cars can burn so hot (and that wind does not help!) that anything nearby or around them typically goes up, too.

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A few years ago I heard what sounded like a couple of rapid-fire car collisions. Turned out to the be tires of a car across the road exploding because the car in question was on fire. Fortunately BFD showed up and put it down promptly before the fire could spread. The triple-deckers in my neighborhood are spaces a bit better than in Eastie...

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Not so sure I like the "new" look of Universal Hub Adam...is there a way to make the column of stories larger? Or flip the content of the right column with the Left Column? I am using the latest Firefox and it looks like the 'news' is a squished up.

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The news column is actually a bit larger than it was in the old system. Any chance you could do a screen capture and send it to me?

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For a couple of days last week the adverts where sized out of per potion to the rest of the layout on my androids. Seems to be okay now. Maybe if the user tries ye old logging out and in routine?

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Probably a bit OT but last night was probably the first time I've actually gotten a Broadcastify Alert for an incident in Boston. I didn't receive one for the recent Beacon Street fire, The 8 alarm fire in Southie, or the 7 alarm one in the Mass Ave. In fact I don't remember receiving one for the Marathon Bombing. Yet I'm constantly receiving alerts for brush fires or whatever from the middle of nowhere.

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