SAUGUS — Chuck Kelly was delivering mail along Sanders Drive Wednesday afternoon when he heard a “little bit of a pop.” The 58-year-old Saugus resident turned to his rearview mirror and saw thick, black smoke emerging from 29 Sanders Drive and — a minute later — flames shooting out of the residence.
Saugus firefighters were called to 29 Sanders Drive around 2:50 p.m. Wednesday and were confronted with heavy fire upon arriving, Chief Michael Newbury said in a brief interview at the scene. Fire was coming out of the roof towards the back of the home and had quickly spread through the back of the home.
Firefighters quickly struck a second alarm while battling the blaze, drawing mutual aid from the nearby communities of Lynn, Malden, Melrose, and Wakefield.
Newbury said the blaze appears to have begun in that back area of the home, but the cause is under investigation and will remain so for a number of days.
Four people live in the home, he said, but none were home when the fire broke out.
Laura Kestenburg, of Middleton, said the house is owned by her niece. Kestenburg said her niece and her family were on their way to Florida when the fire broke out.
“They were going on vacation,” she said. “They got a call and they came home. It’s very sad.”
Most of the damage was done to the back of the house, though Newbury said the interior sustained smoke and water damage. He estimated there were roughly $300,000 to $400,000 in damages.
“We probably did a little bit of removing drywall and stuff like that, to see where the fire is and if we got it all,” he said. “We tried to do minimal damage. You know, we’re not going to just break out windows for the sake of doing it.”
Newbury praised the work of first-arriving companies, adding that while fighting any fire is not easy, everyone on scene did what they needed to ensure the fire was knocked down quickly.
“This one here was handled properly by the people on scene. That’s the best way to put it,” he said.
