Three-alarm brush fire burns Revere area

REVERE – Firefighters from as far away as Cambridge assisted in extinguishing a three-alarm brush fire Thursday in the woods of North Revere.Approximately eight acres between Morris and Franklin streets were scorched in the four and-a-half-hour blaze that began shortly before 4 p.m., according to Revere Deputy Fire Chief Bob Eydenberg.At the height of the fire, flames were only 200 feet from properties on Morris Street and Concord Street.”Every three to five years, you get a good one,” Morris Street resident George Zomdiros said. “Hopefully this’ll take care of it for a while.”On a scale from one to 10, Eydenberg rated this brush fire a “five.”Lifelong Franklin Street resident Ginny Mullen, 53, keeps a long garden hose near her home in case of brush fires, which usually pop up around spring and fall.”We’ve never had to use it,” Mullen said.Her dad, Bill Mullen, says Thursday’s blaze was more noticeable than others in recent memory.”This is smokier than the others,” he said.Fire apparatus from MassPort, Cambridge, Boston, Chelsea, Lynn, Melrose, and other communities assisted the Revere Fire Department. The firefighters from the towns closest to the scene, Malden and Saugus, were not present because they were busy battling fires in their own communities.Both Malden and Saugus extinguished brush fires Thursday. Saugus jakes also put out a four-alarm fire at a Central Street apartment building where two people were taken out in a dramatic rescue.”They were so tied up with the three-alarm they had earlier in the day,” Eydenberg said.The deputy says it’s a “minimal” possibility that the brush fire was not intentionally set, or started by something else, like the careless disposal of a cigarette or fireworks.The hardest part about handling the brush fire was just getting to the scene, located hundreds of feet behind homes on a very hilly terrain, Eydenberg said.”There were no paths. You’re climbing over rocks,” he said. “It’s very difficult to access.”He said firefighters were “very lucky” that no one was injured, from slipping on the rocks or otherwise.Another brush fire earlier in the day took about an hour to put out in woods behind Clifton Street, on the Saugus line, after it broke out around 1:30 p.m. and burned two acres, Eydenberg said.