Revere apartment destroyed in fire

REVERE – A basement apartment of a three-family home on Beachland Avenue was destroyed in a single-alarm fire shortly before noon Wednesday, firefighters said.”It pretty much gutted the basement apartment,” Deputy Fire Chief Chris Bright said.The fire began in the kitchen of 4 Beachland Ave. around 11:30 a.m. Bright said no one was inside the basement apartment when the fire broke out, but residents of the first and second floor heard alarms and noticed smoke.”If nobody was home [at all] it would have gone unnoticed for a few minutes. As it was, it had a pretty good head start,” Bright said.The fire displaced 13 residents, including two children and an infant, firefighters said.While the basement apartment was destroyed, the first- and second-floor apartments suffered mostly smoke damage. However, power was cut to the building and no residents could stay there Wednesday night.Bright said a basement door to the house was blocked by a large bureau and would have been a hazard if people were in a nearby bedroom.”If they were in the bedroom they wouldn’t have been able to get out,” he said.The official cause of the fire is under investigation.