LYNN – A three-alarm fire destroyed a three-story, six-family tenement building at 436-438 Western Ave., early Saturday morning.District Fire Chief Lee Oliver said the building is a total loss, but firefighters were able to safely evacuate the 27 tenants of the wood-frame building. According to property records, the six-unit building is owned by The Zafar Corporation of Sharon and dates to 1890. The property was assessed at $311,200 in 2011.Oliver said the call reporting the fire came in at 2:03 a.m. and upon arrival, there was heavy fire and smoke billowing from the third floor.?On arrival I called for a working fire and in a matter of five minutes I called a second alarm, which brings all (fire apparatus and personnel) Lynn has. Mutual aid came in with the third alarm a half hour later,” Oliver said. “The alarms were going off and there were people pounding on (apartment) doors when we arrived. A crew went right inside and through the building room-by-room to make sure everyone made it out. They were able to assist everybody right out the normal egress to the hallway. There were six families and some with children.?Firefighters made a pretty good attack on the fire inside the building,” Oliver said. “They were opening up the walls and making headway but it?s a big, balloon-construction building. The fire started somewhere in the walls of the second floor and went right up to the cockloft and spread laterally left and right. There was no stopping it then.”He added, “Once it got onto the roof it took a couple of layers of roofing material and the tar gave us a fight.”Outside the building three sides of the building were attacked by Lynn apparatus while hose lines attacked the back of the building.Oliver said he declared the fire under control at 6:01 a.m., but crews continued to work at the scene until 11:10 a.m. The fire was contained to the one building.?The building is a total loss. The third story is just burned right off,” he said.Building Inspector Roger Ennis declared the building a public danger.?It will have to be razed.”He said given the time of the blaze, it?s fortunate there were no injuries or loss of life.?The guys did a phenomenal job considering the amount of fire on arrival.”?With modern construction there are fire breaks between the floors. So if the fire was in a wall in the second floor it travels until the block and doesn?t go further. With older construction the walls were built with long studs from the base all the way up to the roof. It just travels straight up and into the cockloft and then left and right.”Red Cross was on scene to assist tenants displaced by the fire into temporary shelter. A section of Western Avenue was closed to traffic until 9 a.m., when one lane was opened until firefighters cleared the scene.Communities that sent mutual aid apparatus to the scene included Marblehead, Peabody, Salem, Saugus and Swampscott. Boston Fire apparatus covered Lynn stations during the blaze.Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy was also called to the fire scene.?I have orders with Fire Dispatch that anytime there is a working fire to call me and let me know. And I got a call a little after 2 a.m. I was on the scene when the third alarm was called,” Kennedy said. “When I heard it was 438 Western Ave. I knew in that general area has a lot of multi-families, so my first thought was would they be able to evacuate everyone given the time of night and with everyone sleeping.”Kennedy said although the property loss is tragic, “I was happy everyone made it out and there were no injures to any firefighters.”