Lynn fire victim improves slightly

LYNN – Survival chances for a 57-year-old man injured in an East Lynn fire Tuesday have improved, arson inspector Donald Baron said Friday.Massachusetts General Hospital continues listing Glaston Edwards in serious condition. Firefighters initially assisted by police officers pulled him out of the debris-filled first floor of 18 Clinton St. Tuesday night.Baron said investigators want to ask Edwards if he can help them pinpoint the fire’s cause.”We’d like to talk to him,” Baron said.Fire Department and State Fire Marshal’s investigators have narrowed the fire’s origin to the back entrance of the house, but they are still trying to determine if an electrical malfunction, carelessly disposed cigarette or other source of ignition started the fire.”At this point we can’t rule anything out but there is no indication it is a set fire,” Baron said.Firefighters responded to the first alarm sounded for the fire at 9:27 p.m. and spent more than five hours fighting it.Three other residents and three police officers who tried to rescue Edwards were taken to hospitals Tuesday night, treated and released. Firefighters and police Officer Thomas Hazard, who battled six times through blinding smoke attempting to rescue Edwards, said they found the home’s first floor hallway partially blocked by stored items.”Storage was a factor in this entire fire,” said Fire Lt. David Legere.City inspectors cited homeowners Clifford Jones and Marbline Walker in 2006 and 2007 for “excessive exterior storage” after neighbors complained about trash around 18 Clinton.A demolition crew carried out city orders Friday to raze the small house. As of Tuesday, Walker and Jones and four other residents were staying at area motels.Investigators continue to probe the cause of the 18 Clinton fire even as they charge a Boston woman with setting fire to 263 Essex St. on Sept. 16.Baron said Mia Richburg, 43, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with breaking and entering in the daytime to commit a felony and arson of a dwelling. She pleaded innocent to the charges in District Court and was assigned $1,000 bail.The fire heavily damaged an apartment in an addition built onto the rear of the Essex Street building. Baron said Ernest Taylor, the father of Richburg’s son, lives in the apartment. After calling Taylor and learning he would be at work on Sept. 16, Richburg came to Lynn from Boston with a male companion and broke into Taylor’s apartment through a window.Baron said she lit a fire in the bedroom and on an upholstered living room chair, telling the man as she left the apartment, “I lit the place up.”No one was hurt in the fire but Baron said “it was bad enough that it rendered the apartment uninhabitable.”Baron and Legere worked with the Fire Marshal and State Police to investigate the fire.