Three-alarm fire injures pair of firefighters near Boston St.

LYNN – A massive three-alarm fire burned three houses on Boston Street and Strawberry Avenue late Tuesday night and left two firefighters injured.Firefighters were called to 21-23 Strawberry Ave. shortly before 10 p.m. By the time firefighters arrived, the blaze mushroomed and spread to neighboring homes at 248 and 250 Boston St., which are all located extremely close to one another.Click here to see Dan O’Brien’s video of the fire on Strawberry Avenue.According to Lynn Fire Investigator Lt. Dave Legere, the two injured firefighters were from Lynn Engine 7.Lynn District Fire Chief Rick Gecoy said later the firefighters were treated at Union Hospital for heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation. He declined to identify the injured firefighters.”The guys in the hospital did a very good job,” Gecoy said.The officials say the blaze likely started in the Strawberry Avenue home, which was heavily damaged.Gecoy explained 248 Boston St. suffered from serious damage but might be saved, while 250 Boston St. suffered lighter damage, mostly to the vinyl siding.There were some tense moments around 11:30 p.m. as the fire was beginning to die, when firefighters weren’t sure if two people were inside the home. However, those people were accounted for just after midnight.No civilian injuries were reported.”I haven’t seen anything like this in a while,” Gecoy said. “It was a lot of fire.”Peter Osazuwa, whose wife and three children live inside 248 Boston St., frantically arrived at the scene and initially couldn’t find his children. But after a few nerve wracking moments, they were found.”I am grateful for that,” he said.Osazuwa’s wife, Adama, is credited with calling 911 and banging on neighbors’ doors when she first saw the fire.According to her friend, Adama thought she smelled smoke and looked out her back window. Then, she saw smoke coming from a window at 23 Strawberry Ave. before seeing an orange glow.”Then she called 911,” said her friend, Mabinty Sesay. “By the time she came outside, it was escalating.”Adama then ran outside and started banging on doors to get people out of nearby homes, neighbors said.”The lady that lives in this house here came over and rang our bell. She said there’s smoke coming from the back,” said Jim Phelan, resident of 250 Boston St. “We looked through my back window and saw the house engulfed in flames.”Phelan lives at the home with his wife, Irene and their two daughters, Colleen, 22 and Roxann, 20.”We grabbed every little thing we could,” he said.Irene Phelan says she obtained important documents that she kept in a small safe in case something like a fire occurred. She strongly credits Adama’s quick thinking for saving their lives.”If that lady hadn’t come over, we never would have known until it erupted,” she said.Aura Espinal lives on Strawberry Avenue and was amazed her home wasn’t damaged.”I was crying because the flames were on top of my house,” Espinal said.The landlord of 21-23 Strawberry Ave., Miguelina DeLeon of Lynn, who does not live at the home, arrived on the scene when she heard the news.DeLeon, who said she purchased the two-family home in 2006 for $249,000, said two adults live in one apartment near the front of the home and six adults and two children live in the second apartment in the back of the home, which is where witnesses say the fire began.According to Legere, most of the fire damage was at 23 Strawberry.Alberto Rodriguez, 27, lives at the home with his wife, Bianenby DeLeon, 21 with their two children, ages 1 and 3, as well as the four other adults.The couple moved to Lynn from Guatemala about eight years ago, according to Osbin Barrios, a family friend who interpreted for the couple. Alberto works as a landscaper, he said.The family said they were eating dinner at a restaurant at the time the fire occurred.Barrios offered them a place to stay Tuesday night.Franklin and Boston streets were closed for nearly four hours during the incident.Mutual aid was received from several neighboring