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Seven-alarm fire rips through East Boston apartment building
By adamg on Sun, 04/01/2012 - 2:01pm
Firefighters are at 330 Chelsea St., where a fire quickly went to three alarms shortly before 2 p.m. About five minutes later, firefighters were ordered off the roof and a fourth alarm was ordered. After the roof collapsed and firefighters evacuated the building, a fifth alarm was ordered around 2:45; a sixth at 3:15 p.m.; a seventh at 3:25 when fire flared up in the original location.
Firefighters battled to keep the fire from spreading to neighboring buildings. Despire their best efforts, flames damaged one neighboring building. The Boston Fire Department estimated damage at $2.5 million.
Some 16 people are now without a home; the Red Cross was called in to help, as was an MBTA bus. No residents were injured, but three firefighters were taken to local hospitals with minor injuries.
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Comments
Photos
I have some photos up from the top of Eagle Hill. The smoke is clouding pretty much the entire view to the West and all of Eastie reeks of fire. Pretty intense.
Apparently the link never posted.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66908586@N06/sets/72157629717723937/
Scary thought ...
Wow. Scary photo although it looks as though it turned out to be far less serious than it could have been. Maybe the roof material was tar & burned off the smoke?
Funny that I could be sitting two streets away and not notice a thing except a couple trucks going by.
The other scary thing is that fire engines have to navigate such narrow streets as there are in the South End (and North End). Remember several years ago when there was that fire in South Boston and the fire engines couldn't get down the street because of cars in the way (although there I think it was that cars were double-parked).
The downtown neighborhoods are so dense and the houses (obviously) attached, so if anything happens in one, it could quickly spread to other buildings.
(In the Back Bay, townhouses originally had little protection between them, but following the 1872 fire, the code changed. You can see several buildings with "fire walls" between them - the brick barriers you see jutting up between buildings.)
South End and narrow streets
There are very few narrow streets in the South End. I've actually spent time hunting them down. Most of the streets are at least 4 lanes across, if not more.
South End street widths
Sure, Columbus Avenue, Tremont Street, Shawmut Avenue, Washington Street, Harrison Ave, and the extended Back Bay streets (Berkeley through Dartmouth) are reasonably wide. But ... Rutland Street? Concord Street? Springfield Street? Newton Street? Just about all of the town-named cross streets are narrow.
Not those
Newton, Concord, Springfield and Rutland are all four lanes in width. At least. 2 parking, 2 travel.
Good point, Matthew
True, those main streets are wide. The side streets are two lanes, many, or at least, room for two cars to pass each other even with parking, but not two trucks. I'm thinking Waltham, Bradford, Hanson, Dwight, Gray, West Canton, etc, for starters.
The bigger issue is that all the buildings are attached in long rows. As they found out in the East Boston case, there are fire walls between buildings, but they are not impenetrable.
Not that narrow
Funny, I actually used Waltham as my canonical example of a wide side street in the South End. Easily fits 4 cars adjacent, without touching:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/71187350@N08/6778307119/in/photostream/
Nobody has mentioned what I have found (so far) to be the smallest street in the South End, Taylor St:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/71187350@N08/6778305119/in/photostream/
Unless you count this as a street, in which case, it wins:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/71187350@N08/6778308623/in/photostream/
Another nice thing about Taylor Street is that it's short. Narrow streets with short blocks are ideal. Gives you lots of opportunities to turn the corner and see something different. And the narrowness of the streets means that you don't waste too much real estate on asphalt.
Smallest Street in Brookline
The narrowest street in Brookline is White Place near Brookline Village. Here's a map link: http://g.co/maps/mn4fc
Mayor Menino at the scene
Photo.
I always chuckle when I see
I always chuckle when I see Mumbles riding around in the front seat. Are his staff so afraid of him they won't tell him he's supposed to sit in the back for security?
Cripes
Security?
Really?
What are you worried about? Do you think Al Qaeda is going to kidnap Mayor Menino? Or is Lee Harvey Saklad going to shoot him from the West Roxbury Book Depository?
Such a polarizing figure, so vital to the course of the country, legions of twisted conspirators are chomping at the bit to assassinate Mayor Menino. If only they could ever find a time when he's exposed in public to carry out their plans! Foiled again by the simple expedient of sitting in the back seat! And a grateful nation thanks Cripes.
how did this get so bad?
Someone please tell me how a building two blocks from the district chief and an engine company...and less than a mile from a ladder company and second engine company...
...becomes 7 alarms and a total loss?
Did they get lost or something?
More than just quick response time
The building is "hemmed in" by other buildings - there is no clear approach.
It might have been smoldering long before anybody noticed the building was on fire - that happened in a multifamily in Medford that was practically next door to the fire station - burned up inside all the walls before it erupted (several guests on the third floor died when they got disoriented - horrible tragedy).
It is an old building, packed with wood that may have had years of built up oil, varnish, etc.
We don't know what was stored in the building or how it was constructed. If it did not have firestops between floors, it could go up rather quickly.
Other reasons?
This is about fifth time I
This is about fifth time I read this kind of statement after a fire in Boston. I want to give credit to the hard work of the firefighters who saved the attached building and the six family next door. Channel 7 has the incredible video of the first arriving fire trucks at an extremely large fire. Firefighters did a great job protecting the wooden exposure building next door.
Depending on what expert you listen to, a fire doubles in size every one to three minutes. A cell phone call will get the firetrucks rolling in about nine minutes. Here's what happens; your call goes to Mass. State Police, they transfer the call to Boston Police, they transfer it to Boston Fire, who then dispatch the trucks. Cell phones suck for getting help. The right thing to do is go to the nearest red box labeled "Emergency" on the corner. Its signal immediately arrives in the Fire Alarm office and trucks will roll in two minutes. You should know where the nearest box is in your neighborhood. Additionally, they are extremely useful for medical emergencies. Other things that may have been a factors are the amount of people driving by thinking that someone else must have called and the chance that an accelerent was used. If you spend five seconds in East Boston, you know Chelsea Street so no, they didn't get lost.
Seriously? Balloon
Seriously?
Balloon construction. Proximity to adjacent structures. Smolder time. Three conditions that, off the top off my head, impact a "save" versus a "loss."
Please, troll against BFD somewhere else. They did their very best today. You, on the other hand, acted like a jack-wagon on the internet.
::slow clap::
They need your expert help
You should give them the benefit of your energy and expertise. You can apply today to take the firefighter's exam.
Your mom will like you not sleeping on her couch three nights a week. So she'll probably loan you the hundred fifty bucks for the exam.
More clues to how this fire got bad
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/202...
The top floor owner's unit, was fully involved, while the owners were out of town.
Somehow, there were no alarms going off, so there were people in the lower floors who were unaware of the situation and still in the building!
In other words, nobody was around to report the fire, and nobody inside even noticed it! It was called in by a 12 year old not familiar with the area on a cel phone, too.